Check Out Time at the Ritz

Even This Ain't Far Enough South Apparently

2 Nights ago the low here at Camp Bee in Marshall, TX was 26ª - as in 6º below TOO COLD for us.  So, we are pressing on farther south.  We are leaving here in the morning to head to McAllen, TX which is right on the Rio Grande River between the US and Mexico.  We've actually had this trip on our calendar for about 5 weeks.  We will be visiting an RV development.  Here's the website:

Bentsen Palm Village RV Resort

We continue to consider having a "base of operations" from which to do our sojourns.  A key criteria is that the state we live in doesn't freeze.  This is the reason we became Florida Residents at the end of last year and we are certain we will be there next winter.  But we've about concluded that Florida may be MANY things ("God's Waiting Room" for instance) but being "Centrally Located" isn't one of them!  So, we are considering Texas also.

The Rio Grande Valley is where "Winter Texans" seem to congregate.  It's as far south as you can go without becoming an Illegal Alien in Mexico which means its the best chance at having moderate temperatures in the winter (which is the time when we will want them).  In the summer when it is sweltering hot down there we will be visiting our kids and doing sojourns farther north.

Every Thursday night the sojourners that are staying at Camp Bee get together to have a pitch-in dinner.  So, yesterday I spent the day making Beef Curry and Roti.  Roti is an Indian fried bread.

To make enough for 20 people, I had to go "institutional" in my food prep.  The kitchen in the Lodge here is amazing!  It has 4 ovens and 2 stoves.  It has a 5 foot x 10 foot 100% stainless steel "island" in the center of it.  There are more pots and pans and measuring cups and spatulas and anything else that a cook could want than you can shake a whole faggot (used in its PROPER CONTEXT and with its PROPER MEANING) of sticks at!  Still, making good curry from scratch is a time consuming venture.  Since there isn't a crock pot big enough to hold enough curry for 20 people, I had to make it in a large stainless steel pot on the stove.  That's problematic because until the pot is hot enough to cook, you have to have the pot hot enough that it might burn the contents of the pot on the bottom of the pot.  That means that you have to stir it every 10-15 minutes for the first 2 hours.  Once the pot gets up to the proper temperature, you can back the pot down to the LOWEST of the LOWS and let it simmer.  But good curry made this way takes 8 hours, so I had to be at the kitchen by 9:30 to have it cooked by the 5:30 dinner time.

Once it was cooking I could turn my attention to the Roti.  I use a recipe given to me by Viola Manuel in Cape Town, South Africa. Here it is:

Roti Recipe

3 cups flour
1 Tsp salt
3 Tbl oil
Enough water to form a soft dough
1 cup soft butter or margarine
Oil for frying

1. Mix the flour and salt in a large mixing bowl and add the oil.

2. Rub in until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

3. Add water and mix to a fairly soft dough. Roll out on a floured surface and roll to the size of a 23 x 32cm rectangle.

4. Spread the dough with softened butter and roll it up like a Swiss roll.

5. Cover with a tea towel and leave for 30 minutes.

6. Break off pieces of dough and form into balls the size of tennis balls.

7. Roll out each ball into a disc the size of a dinner plate.

8. Fry in hot oil for 2 minutes on each side.

Since I could only cook ONE at a time and each one of the 20 that I cooked takes 4 minutes, that means that it took over one hour just to cook them all.  It made me appreciate why it takes so long to get any kind of "special order" bread (aloo kulcha, aloo paratha, etc) that I order at an Indian Restaurant.  Everyone seemed to like the meal, so the time spent was worth it all.  Irene who's had the "real stuff" in South Africa even said it was great.  I did make it fit for foreigners, not for native Indians.  It was almost dark brown, not nuclear orange - RIGHT, JOSHUA!!

Good Night.

Timber!!

APIAN CARNAGE AT CAMP BEE

The one thing that Dave Blair and I have been doing for most of the last 2 weeks is "beautifying" the camp.  I've told you about the clear cutting that they did on the "back 20" (http://www.jitrekking.blogspot.com/2014/02/yesterday-was-federal-holiday.html)

This not only involves cleaning up trees that were "victims" of the "clear cutting" spoken about in that post but also cutting down old and rotting trees.  Today was such a tree.  There was a sweet gum tree - Below are a couple pictures m - to show you how one SHOULD look and the other of the unique leaves of the sweet gum:

That isn't what the one we felled today looked like.  It was rotted out inside and hollow about the first 30 feet up.  Here's what it looked like after it was cut down and cut up for removal:

You can clearly see that 80% of the inside of this tree is totally gone.  Each of these pieces is about 4 feet long.  The stump is still in the ground.  We cut it up about 5 feet high.  Below is a REALLLY cool picture.  

This is the trunk of the tree after we cut down to the just above the hole that was in the base of the tree at ground level on the right side of the tree (at about "2:30" where the two curls are touching).  This would indicate to me that the cleft was ALWAYS in the tree as it grew but was a "weak spot" that allowed bacteria/fungus or something to enter and kill the central heart of the tree.  

Through the years it ate at the tree until it was eaten away up to 30 feet up.  All the limbs died and fell off and were replaced by the "scabs" (bumps) you see on each section but the first.  The tree finally only had enough substance to support a large single branch that was at the top of the tree.  This made the tree top heavy and heavily weighted on the side that the one large limb was one.  Eventually a wind would blow the tree over quite possibly on an RV that someone would have been in.  It HAD TO BE cut down.

We could see that the base of the trunk of the tree had a bunch of black gunk in it.  Dave a I suppositioned that it might possibly be feces from animals living in it.  You can see pretty easily that it was quite possibly a squirrel "Sheraton" hotel.  We were about to ruin the day of ANYTHING that was living in this puppy!

"GOING DOWN!  GROUND FLOOR EXPRESS!!!"

Sure enough as soon as the tree hit the ground a (probably totally dazed) squirrel bolted from one of the holes about 1/2 way up the trunk.  "Home Sweet, BOOOOMMMM!"

Dave started at the upper end of the tree chain sawing it into these 4 foot pieces.    He cut down through the whole "good limb" at the top of the tree and hit the hollow section.  About 2 cuts down, he noticed some bees beginning to buzz out of a small hole about 8 feet down the trunk.  Luckily, this is winter and the temperature at 38º this morning, so these bees weren't able to move very quickly.  They were awakened from a frozen slumber by the vibration of the chain saw.  We stopped immediately and went to get some bee, wasp and hornet spray.  They couldn't continue to live here now.  They were 6 inches off the ground in a tree that had an appointment with a burn pile.  "Good night, sweet princesses!"

The Hole from which the bees were exiting.  On the ground are the dead one's that were at the opening when I sprayed the bee, wasp and hornet killer spray on them.

All bees at this time of year are females.  The male drones that had their shot at the queen were pushed out the door (or killed) at the beginning of the fall.  Since they don't do anything but lay around and try to breed (DON'T THINK THOSE WICKED, EVIL THOUGHTS LADIES IN THE AUDIENCE your husbands do SLIGHTLY more than that!) males don't get to live.  All "worker bees" are "females" (though technically their genitalia develop into that stinger that you hate).

I started spraying the clump of bees at the opening.  There was a pretty big clump of them at the opening apparently forming a "bee plug" to keep the cold air off of the Queen Bee inside.   They started exiting groggily from another hole.  BAD CHOICE LADIES!  A couple blasts more and there are no more bees.

It's lunch time.

After lunch Dave and I head back and we cut the rest of the hollow trunk.  This time we start nearest to the base of the tree and work up toward the bee hive area.  We stop 8 feet below the bee hive area and then we go above the hive 2 feet and cut - no bee movement.  We move away that 4 foot section of hollow trunk.  Next we cut 2 feet below the hive area and a couple of groggy bees buzz out of the original hole.  I roll away the piece of hollow log below the hive section.  Some number of bees start to fly out.  Dave heads to another area of the ground to work to allow the bees to settle down.  I head to the office to get another can of bee killer.

By the time I got back to the hive it had settled down.  I began spraying into the newly opened, large open end of the trunk which was actually the "deepest" part of the original hive.   Very few bees came staggering out to die.  Next I took a 5 foot piece of 2 inch diameter vine that had been attached to the tree when it was cut down.  I used it as a "roto-rooter" to give the each of the 4 openings (the original hole we noticed bees coming out of; the second somewhat larger hole that bees began to fly out of when I sprayed the original opening.  The 3rd and 4th were the large hollow "trunk" openings at the top and bottom of the bee hive section of the tree.  The bottom trunk opening is where the "nursery" wax "comb" was.  It pulled out easily but this time about 20 bees that were LESS than "happy" came out.  I had the bee killing spray in my hand and just kept spraying at the opening as they appeared.  They never knew what hit 'em!  After about a minute there were no more bees and no more comb at that end.  Next I went to the top of the piece and applied the vine roto-rooter from that end.  There was a fair amount of comb near the top.  I pushed it to the bottom opening.  The piece now was devoid of living bees and any bees wax at all (BTW, there was NO honey in ANY of the comb.  It is the end of winter and the bees had eaten it all already).

Tomorrow I'm spending the day cooking beef curry and roti for the sojourners that are on site.  There are about 20 of us.

FOOD FIGHT!!!!!

Got Your Attention, don't I?

One thing that Sojourners love to have is fellowship around a meal - "Bellyship" as Peter Manuel calls it.  Getting together around a table and practicing our "Turkey Talk" - "Gooble, Gooble, Gooble." Today about 18 of us went to a small hole-in-the-wall grocery/restaurant about 20 minutes from Marshall.  It's the home of the "Bubba Burger" - a 1/2 pound burger with all the fixins you could want on it. Irene ordered the "Bacon Bubba Burger" and small "extra-crispy" fries and crispy fried okra.  I'm not personally a big burger fan, so I ordered a fish sandwich with cheese, tomato and tarter sauce only on it and a large crispy fries.  Since there were 18 of us and only one waitress it took about 20 minutes to get all of the orders delivered.  While we were waiting Irene disappeared and I thought she'd gone to the little girls room.  After about 10 minutes she comes back and asks everyone at the table - "Guess how many different kind of hot sauces they have on the shelves over there?"  I hadn't even turned around and I just guessed 45.  Many guesses came in - 70, 28, 75, even a 125.  Irene said that the lady that had guessed 125 was closest but even she was "way off!"  It ends up that they had 224 DIFFERENT hot sauces in their collection (not for sale) from all around the world.

As we commonly do, we had to ask them to refry our fries to get them crispy.  Then they were excellent.

As we left - all stuffed - I suggested to Irene and the Blairs that, rather than go to dinner,  we all just go have a desert at dinner time.  I mentioned ice cream and then Dave and Brenda suggested Frozen Yogurt (which EVERYONE knows is better for you, right?).  So, this evening we went to Diddy's Yogurt Shoppe over in Longview.  I am virtually certain that if frozen yogurt is good for you than we are all V-E-R-Y good now. You walk in and walk over to grab what size cup you want to put your yogurt in - big or bigger (This is Texas, baby, they don't allow "small" cups in the state).  Then you walk over to where they have about 20 different frozen yogurts in 10 different "soft serve" machines where you can take one of 2 flavors or swirl the 2 flavors.  You can put as much of any flavor in your cup as you choose.  Then you walk over to the Toppings Bar - all kinds of fruits; sauces and other toppings - chocolate chips; cookies; coconut; cheesecake, etc. and you put as much of any of those as you want to.  Then you walk over to the cashier and you put your healthful yogurt concoction on a scale and they weigh it and charge you 45¢ per ounce.  Cheap at twice the price no doubt.

Well we finished round one and Dave and I decided - That was dinner, right?  So now let's go get our desert - DING, DING, DING! - ROUND 2.  It was just as good.

No doubt about it - our Nutrisystem diet took it in the teeth today.

Carole King Was SOOOOO Right!

o/`o/`
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose
And most times you choose between the two
Wonderin', wonderin' if you have made it
o/`o/`
Carole King - "Sweet Seasons" - 1971

One of the things that Sojourners do is play games - two or three nights a week.  There is "Pegs and Jokers" which is like Aggravation using cards instead of points.  Each player has 5 pegs which begin at "home."  To get out of home and onto the board takes a face card, an ace, or a joker. A 7 card can be split between 2 of the players pegs out on the board moving each forward for a total of 7 spots. An 8 card moves one peg 8 spots backward.  A 9 can be split (but doesn't HAVE to be) between 2 of the players peg with one moving forward and the other backward.  Together the moves must equal 9.  Jokers do LOTS of different things.  Anyway, Irene and I, the Blairs and the Lucases played a game last night - the men against the women.  The men got drubbed.  

On to another game - Something called "Arkansas Rummy."  Irene and I had never played this bizarre little ditty.  The game consists of  11 hands.  You can have flushes (3 or more consecutive cards of the same suit) or 3 (or more) of the same cards (3s, 4s, 9s, etc). You begin with 3 cards in the first hand. 4 in the second, 5 in the third, etc. until you get 13 cards.  That isn't all.  In the first hand 3s are wild; then 4s in the second; 5s in the third, etc. along with jokers.  Its played with 7 or 8 decks shuffled together.  Each player plays as an individual.  There's a lot more rules but this gives you an idea that this is a crazy game.  Oh yea, Jokers can substitute for ANY card in a flush or same card groups.  BUT the bottom line is that even though this game is played as individual NOT teams, the 3 women ALL had lower scores than the 3 men.  

We didn't even have time to have the women (probably) pummel us in "Hand and Foot."

I had to beat Irene twice in Scrabble to re-establish Domestic Order this morning.

This afternoon I took a 4 mile walk.  Part of it was in what USED to be the "Nature Trail" here at Camp Bee.  When they clear cut about 20 acres last summer, they had to close the trail.  But I walked it today and got some pictures for you all.

The first is the farm BEHIND Camp Bee.  It a beautiful cut alfalfa field with some out buildings behind it.

The next is a picture of the soil here at Camp Bee.  You can see it is very red.  This is iron which oxidizes (rusts) in soil.

The tree below looks lethal.  Look at the thorns on this bad boy!  It might be a Locust tree.  I'm not sure if it is a Honey Locust or a Black Locust:

Here is a evergreen that we all probably know - a Holly Bush:

Finally, you know all that "rusty" looking soil in the picture above. What do you think it makes water look like when it gets into it?  Rusty you say!  Look here:

The meaning of the word work

Yesterday was a Federal Holiday - President's Day, so we didn't work at Camp Bee either.  So, I took the opportunity to go have a Retinologist stick a needle in my eye.  Yea, Bubba, now that's MY idea of holiday fare.  My left eye has what is called a "branch vein occlusion" which means that one of the veins that drain blood brought to the eyeball by its arteries has a blockage and won't drain.  This makes the blood in that vein "pool" which causes swelling which in turn makes my vision in that eye seem like there is a "cloud" over it.  On the eye chart exam, I can read the 20/20 line with my right eye but only the 20/40 line with my left eye and even that is "wavy."

To reward me for being a "big boy" and not crying when the doctor stuck a needle in my eye.  We went to Texas Roadhouse and I got a full rack of ribs.  They were "fall off the bone" wonderful.  I came back to the rig and walked 3 miles to work some of that fat off.

Congrats to the USA's ice dancing team that took gold in the Olympics last night.

Today I was reminded what actual WORK is - you know hard, physical work - not sitting at a desk and pushing paper or preparing and preaching a sermon.  Dave Blair, Dave Bell and I worked on clearing a lot of trees.  Here at Camp Bee they had about 40 acres that were tree covered that they had "clear cut."  What a misnomer!  It should be called "90 % cut DOWN" or "65% hauled away."  They left all the "small stuff" (under about 6 inches in diameter) broken and laying on the ground.  To replant the land (which MUST be done because Sojourners has received an "agricultural tree farm" tax rate on the land) All of that stuff has to either be cut up and used for firewood (which is what is done with all the hardwoods - oaks and hickories) or put into burn piles for, well - burning!  Dave Blair was on chain saw; Dave Bell was on the tractor;  I was the carry and drag brigade.  Later in the day, Dave Blair was done cutting the easily cut stuff and helped me with get the smaller branches, twigs and pine stuff put onto the burn piles we started.

I   A-M   S-O-R-E!

Irene also worked today.  She helped in the office.  She had the unenviable task of trying to find out if sojourners that no one has heard from in years (or contacts listed on their applications) are alive or dead.  She did a job that even Joel would be proud of.  Chasing down obituaries and public records if she couldn't contact anyone.  Bravo Irene.

Tonight was a pitch-in with gumbo as the centerpiece.  I opted for the Chinese stir fry that was the other option - I'm not a big fan of Cajun spices and gumbo also usually has the "let me help myself down your throat" snot substitute - okra - as a major ingredient.  Ain't gonna go there!   The deserts were awesome, but then again, aren't they almost always?

Drat! Foiled Again

We arrived at Camp Bee in Marshall, Texas at about 8:30 PM on Friday night.  Brenda Blair was so excited to see Irene that she just threw her housecoat over her PJs and met us in the parking lot.  How sweet.  Its must be nice to be loved.  I did notice that Dave didn't come out to see me.  I guess I'll have to ask Irene what it feels like to be loved! HAHA!

Saturday the Blairs and us went driving around Northeast, TX and Northwest, LA - essentially we made a loop around Lake Caddo.  We stopped at a Catfish Restaurant.  I'm not crazy about eating fish that eat poop for a living.  Catfish are bottom dwellers. You can tell on a fish by its mouth were it live and what it eats.  Catfish have their mouth UNDER the head.  Most fish have it straight in front of the face.  If a fish is a "top-feeder" it will have its mouth at the top of the head right in front of the eyes (like gouramis, many live-bearers (guppies, mollies, etc).  If the fish has teeth its a meat-eater.  If it has no noticeable teeth its probably a vegetarian.  If it has a bony ridge for teeth (like a parrot fish) it is a coral eater.  Back to eating catfish - I don't like it, but "when in Rome, do what the Romans do!"  We had them make us some extra crispy fries.  I've finally figured out how to order "extra crispy" fries.  Usually people just think "We will cook them longer" and that will make them "extra crispy" right!? NOPE!  That will make them "extra-soggy."  The way to order "extra crispy" fries is to tell them "Take some of the fries that you already have made and fry them again."  It's the second frying of already cooling off fried frys that put the "crisp" in them.  The meal also came with "hush puppies" - fried balls of corn bread about 1inch in diameter.  Those were good.  The catfish in the south is rolled in corn meal too - unlike up north where it's rolled in bread crumbs or a batter.  Fried catfish, Fried Hush Puppies, extra-crispy french fries - a suicide by cholesterol meal if I ever ate one.  On a tangential point MY cholesterol is reallllly low.  Total cholesterol of about 125.  Since you MUST eat fats to metabolize many types of vitamins and since you MUST have fats in your body to line nerves and the brain.  My doctor has actually told me about 2 years ago.  You've got to get more fat in your diet.  That's my excuse and I'm stickin' to it!

One of towns we went through was Oil City, Louisiana.  It's right on Lake Caddo.  Apparently it is a really OLD oil field - 1905 to be exact.  It still has many active wells today.

On the way around the west side of Lake Caddo along Texas 43 as you leave Smithville, TX on the way to Marshall, Texas you pass the house in the picture below:

It is the house that Lady Bird (Taylor) Johnson's grew up in.  She came from money.  That's a nice looking house.

After getting back to Camp Bee I went for a 3 mile walk.

Of course yesterday being Sunday was a day we met with the saints at the Eastern Hills church of Christ in Marshall, Texas.  The preacher there is Keith Hodges.  He does a great job of "keeping his nose in the book" while presenting a lesson.  Both of his sermons yesterday (10:30 AM and 6 PM) were from 1 Peter 2 on Jesus being our example for dealing with trials and persecution and how we as christians are supposed to honor our rulers even if they aren't being godly.  Sobering thoughts in today's America.

Now, the bad news.  The vision in my left eye has significantly eroded over the last 10 days.  I have to go to Longview to see Dr. Goslee at 11:45 this morning.  I WILL have to get a shot in the eye today.  On the bright side - the last shot I had was on Dec 6th.  That was 10 1/2 weeks ago.  I noticed the vision heading south about 10 days ago, so the 9 weeks is the longest I've gone between shots in a year.

Our grand daughter Phoebe has a new line of "Party Hats" available.  I got the picture below from Brenda yesterday.  Phoebe wanted a party hat that "doesn't have a rubber band that goes under your chin and makes your chin hurt and leaves a line."  Her's what she designed and made herself:

The strap below is popsicle sticks held together with tape.  You'll need to get your orders in early for these, they are hand made and going to sell like hotcakes, I'm sure!

PS - Just a geography note - Caddo Lake is the only NATURAL lake in the whole state of Texas.  All the rest of the lakes are man made from damming up rivers, creeks, or streams or digging holes and filling them with water.

Sing it to us, Willie!

o/`o/`
On the road again,
It feels so good to be on the road again!
o/`o/`

I woke up at about 7:30 this morning realizing that I had to get my miserable failure of a patch off of the hydraulic hose in case the guy needed it off.  At $85 per hour, I don't want him to spend an extra $40 taking off my OOPS.   So, I got it off, then I thought - maybe just the vinyl tubing wrapped around the holey hydraulic hose (triple alliteration there, baby) would work.  Maybe that aluminum was just so slick it acted like teflon for all that hydraulic fluid screaming "YOU FOOL" at me as it splattered off the chassis rail and onto the ground.  "Patch off, Patch on, Daniel-san!"  (We'll see how many read the blog that are old enough to catch "The Karate Kid" allusion)

Well, it WORKED.................. better?!?  The rate of spray was greatly diminished and the driver's side slide came in 1/2 inch before I told Irene to stop because we were still bleeding hydraulic fluid.  DRAT!  We'll wait I guess.

We had time for a game of Scrabble.  I wonder if Irene ever is going to get tired of getting thumped?  Then at 9:30 she asks "Should we call coach-net to make sure he's still going to come?"  "No, dear,  he's supposed to be here between 10 and 11, so I'll wait until 11 to call to see what's up."

9:56 - Just finishing the "Mauling in Midland" Scrabble game and Billy calls to get directions to the RV campground and by 10:20 he is there.  It only took about 15 minutes to assess where the torn hose tied into the hydraulic pump at.  Then another 10 minutes for him to crawl under the rig and cut the Tie-Wrap holding it in position to the top of the chassis rails.  Another 5 minutes to pull the hose from the far side AFTER he tied a piece of safety wire to it to use to pull the NEW hose BACK over the chassis rails.  So in 1/2 hour we had the old, torn hose out (I get to use the plural "WE" here because I"M the one PAYING for this)

Then he's off to get a new hose made that will be about 2 feet longer so it can be tied off away from the slide control arm so this won't happen again.  40 minutes later he is back with a pretty, new hose.  It only took about 20 minutes to install and it was time for the test - would it work, or just keep laughing at us.  We tried to bring in the driver's side slide:  It just whined for about 5 (OH, NO!!) seconds and then started to come in.  It had to clear the air out of the line first is why it was delayed.  YEP!  YIPPEE~  We buttoned up the rig for travel including bringing up the jacks (which use the same hydraulic reservoir).  Once all the slides were in and jacks up the reservoir could be properly filled.  Then we needed to put some more hydraulic fluid into the reservoir to replace what now lay soaking into the pea gravel under our rig.  To finish up it took another 15 minutes to get the false panel that covers the ride height adjustment pistons over and VIOLA! DUN!

While he wrote up our invoice hooked up our Ford Flex toad and then we hit the road.  It was 12:25.  We are now barreling across West Texas having just gone through Abilene.  Irene started driving just after that giving me the chance to write this blog posting since we knew that you were all on the edge of your seats waiting to read if we got out of Midland today.  Lord willing, tonight we will make it to Marshall and I can take my honey out for Valentines day dinner at A&W or Dairy Queen or some other Texas based haute cuisine.

Sliding Out of Midland ...

Er, NOT so Much!

What a day, what a day.  We got up early this morning ready to hit the road toward Marshall, TX and Sojourner Headquarters Campground - Camp Bee.

Trav'ler ant stowed - CHECK
Tires properly PSI - CHECK
Water disconnected - CHECK
Electric disconnected - CHECK
Sewer disconnected - CHECK
Bedroom Slides In - CHECK
Front Slides In, Front Slides In, FRONT SLIDES IN? - Neither one of them are coming in!!

What's wrong?

Circuit Breaker popped?  NOPE, it can't be that I can hear the hydraulic pump whining.  So, I get out to check around the outside of the rig.  I don't have to go far - There is a puddle of hydraulic fluid near the passenger side front jack. OH, no!  The jack isn't going down though, so it isn't in that hose.

We called Tiffin and they told us to contact "Coach Net" a AAA-type insurance that they pay for the first year as part of the warranty.  They would arrange for a service call right here in the Midland RV Campground. PHEW!  They'd call back in 10-15 minutes with the details.

25 minutes later they call back to tell me they have called 3 different service providers in the area.  2 of them can't get us in until tomorrow.  The 3rd hasn't even returned the call.  So we have a time set up for tomorrow from 10-11 AM in hopes that they can get the slides in somehow.  (These HWH slides do not have a means to manually retract them).

I got under the front of the rig right behind the stairs to take a look.  I had Irene try to bring in the slide - hydraulic fluid exploded out like Yellowstone's Old Faithful Geyser - but I couldn't tell from where.  Was it a fixture that was "blown?"  Was it a hose line "blown out" of a fitting.  To get more information I'd have to remove the side panel that covers the "HWH leveling system."   I had to call Tiffin Service again to find out how the panel was removed.  It doesn't have a door like the rest of the basement.  Off the panel came after unscrewing the 4 L-brackets holding it.

"Bring in a slide again, Love!"  Once again the hydraulic fluid flew (alliteration intended) everywhere but this time I could see the source.  There was a hole worn into on of the hoses because every time the slide control arm extended or retracted the slide it was rubbing against the hose.  Eventually, it had worn this hole in it.

I called a friend of ours, Dick Stockton, to ask if there was any way to "patch" the hose - maybe 6 or 8 winds of aluminum duct tape around the hose over the hole.  He assured me that the pressure in the hose (which is over 1000 PSI) would be too high for the tape to hold it back.  I'd have to try something different. He suggested that M-A-Y-B-E a piece of of a coke can cut out and wrapped around the hose then a piece of vinyl tubing around it and then all of that held in place by multiple hose clamps that encircle it and hold it as tightly as possible from end to end.  It took me over 2 hours to make the trip to Home Depot and get the parts I needed and then come home and jury-rig it all together.  Unfortunately, to no avail.  Even clamped as tightly as I could the hydraulic fluid went everywhere as I tried then tightened it even more and then tried again.  Oh well.

I called Tiffin once again to tell them what had occurred and that they needed to re-engineer the hose position so that it was away from the slide control-arm.  The service rep told me that he had spoken with the engineering department and had been told that "They already were aware of the problem" because 2 or 3 other 2014 Allegro Bus 45LPs with the HWH leveling system had come into service "with the same problem."  It had now been rerouted away from the control arm.  It's the only time I've been upset with Tiffin because we were JUST AT Red Bay about 2 weeks ago and they didn't check our hose placement even though they KNOW our build date and MUST HAVE KNOWN that ours would have the old "poor hose placement."  I'll have a conversation with Bob Tiffin about this one.

On a totally different note:  If you remember the Skin Tag on the neck of Joel spoken about in http://jitrekking.blogspot.com/2014/02/phoebe-ballertapster.html
the fact that we had to stay here today means that we could go to the doctor with Joel when he had his crazy skin tag removed.  I got some pictures of it for you here.

Irene and I are particularly concerned about the dark brown portion of it and the villous appearance of it (how it looks like a bunch of individual bumps all "glued together") when just a week ago it looked about like this (this one isn't Joel's but looks like his DID):

So now it's gone Joel got to pick where he wanted to go for being a "big boy" and not crying when the doctor cut it out.  He barely beat out Phoebe who was a "big girl" and didn't cry when she had blood drawn today for an allergy check AND barely beat out Brenda who was a "big girl" and didn't cry as she watched Phoebe getting her blood being drawn by the allergist.

Tomorrow we hope to be out of here about noon or 1 in the afternoon.  We'll stop about halfway to Marshall for the night.

Catching up with posts

It's been "cold" here in Midland the last couple of days - NOTHING compared to Lafayette, IN where we used to live.  I checked the temperature there this morning and it was -14º, so our 25 sounded absolutely balmy in comparison.

Monday morning we got a call from Brenda that Phoebe was expecting Papa to drive her to pre-K like I had "promised."  I hadn't actually PROMISED, I had only mentioned it, but to Phoebs that was good enough? "Where are you Papa?"  We had our marching orders, we got dressed and headed over to Joel and Brenda's.  After taking Phoebe to her Montessori school, I went to get a haircut while Irene and Brenda went to Sams and Walmart to do some grocery shopping.

Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to find a barber shop open on Mondays?  Since barbers are open on Saturdays and Sundays, they tend to be closed on Mondays.  It took me driving to 4 different shops to finally find one that was open.

After the haircut I headed back to the Trekker to watch the Olympics.  The US isn't doing TOO badly.

Monday and Tuesday evenings Joel, Brenda and Phoebe came over to the Trekker to eat and craft (Phoebe and Irene).  Monday was making cards and Tuesday was doing some beading.

Joel is a "Landman."  That means he goes to county courthouses on behalf of an oil company to determine who has the mineral rights to land that the oil company has an interest in drilling on for oil or natural gas.  He currently is looking in Pecos, TX about 100 miles from Midland requiring him to make a 200 mile round trip 5 days a week.

Tomorrow (Wednesday Feb 12th) is our final full day here in Midland.  We'll go to dinner with the kids for the last time before heading out early Thursday morning.  HOPEFULLY, it will be warm enough tomorrow that Irene can get some washing done.  I've already been told by Phoebe that I am to take her to school again tomorrow morning.  Tomorrow night we will be going to mid-week Bible Study again.

We are finishing the night watching a NatGeo Wild program on the Appalachian Trail.  I'd love to hike to trail at some point.  On the "Bucket List."  I know Kazzie would go with me but it takes 6 months to go from Georgia to Maine (or vice-a-versa) and that can't happen for people that work or are married.

Different Rooms and Different Worlds

You know that this is Sunday, so we spent a great deal of the day with other Christians worshipping God and thanking him for the salvation we have which is in Jesus Christ and Him alone.  This means that I "grope" for things that will be interesting to a great swath of the audience of this blog (though salvation should be of the utmost interest to you all).

Anyway, we got home tonight and after I beat Irene in 2 games of scrabble - the first a heavy-duty thumping (75-99 points) and the second an even more commanding skunk and a thump (150-174 points) - I turned on the TV to watch the Beatles Tribute on CBS.  50 years ago tonight the Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan for the first time.  I was jazzed about getting to watch it.  ONE LITTLE PROBLEM.  I turned on the TV and the winter olympics were on.  Not just the winter olympics the FIGURE SKATING competition of the winter olympics.  Irene saw it (before I could artfully and quickly change the channel).

"We can watch that, can't we?"  You can record other stuff and watch it later, can't you?"  YES, DEAR!

Irene isn't the TV-a-holic that I am.  I was raised on TV from early on.  When I was a kid I had a heart murmur and wasn't allowed to run around outside and have fun with kids.  So, I watched TV.

So, now I'm in the bedroom of the Trekker watching the Beatles and Irene is in the living room of the Trekker watching the Winter Olympics.  Life is soooo Good.  Two DVRs at 3-LNB Winegard Trav'ler DirecTV satellite dish and 3 42" HD-TVs in one Monster Beautiful Roll-Down-the-Highway Home built specifically for us by Tiffin Motorhomes of Red Bay, Alabama. AMEN

Phoebe - the Ballertapster

Today started out kind of stressful.  Last night we noticed a skin tag behind Joel's left ear that he has had for years had suddenly broken open and there are about 5 or 6 dark brown spots on it.  What is particularly worrisome about this is that Joel is a redhead and as such is more apt to get skin cancers AND (the B-I-G reason) at 24 I had a malignant melanoma on my chest that had to be removed.  Let this be a warning to all - If you have a mole, skin tag, freckle etc. that all of a sudden changes color or shape or begins to grow - do NOT wait, get to a physician and get it cut out and get a biopsy done on the removed piece.  It's better to be safe than ... dead!  Melanoma left untreated WILL kill you.

Next we went to Phoebe's ballet and tap class.  The same teacher does both.  There were 5 kids total in the class.  The other 4 were lithe and slender.  Phoebe is the only one built on a Ram-Tough 3/4 ton chassis.  She isn't fat, just wide.  Dick Vitale would call her a "paint-eater" or an "aircraft carrier" if she were a basketball player.

Here are some videos of her doing ballet:

After Ballet and going to eat Joel, Phoebe and I went to the "Odessa Meteor Crater" while Irene and Brenda went home. The crater wasn't exactly the Meteor Crater that is in Arizona - in fact you could mistake it for just a sink hole if you lived in Florida but it is impressive to a  4 year old.

Phoebe Pics and Vids

We've got a couple pictures of Phoebe with Irene and I with the valentine's gifts that she got for us and wrapped them herself:

Eastward Ho!

How depressing.  For 2 days I haven't posted and not the whiff of the hint of a thunderous clamor for "WHERE ARE YOUR DAILY POSTS?!"  Bitter day, we were not missed.  Alas and alack!

We spent our last day in Tucson on Wednesday.  I had to take my iPhone back to the Apple store again, it was still locking up.  So, this time, time they just replaced it.  Hoo-ray.

We went to mid-week bible study at the church where Josh preaches on Wednesday night.  After that we were supposed to meet Chris (who had to work late) at "La Dolce Vita" - "The Sweet Life" afterward but she wasn't feeling well.  So instead she suggests a 5:30 AM Thursday (as in before the sun even has gotten up in the morning) breakfast at Brueggers Bagels as a means of atonement.  We are going to leave that morning and that was e-a-r-l-y to drag it out of bed, but for her - OK.  We hit the road and drove to El Paso yesterday.  We left Tucson @ about 9:30 AM (after a 1 hour nap) and got to El Paso by 3:30 PM.  It was a pretty easy drive - all Interstate 10.

We got up this morning and hit the road at about 10:30.  We made it to Midland at about 5 which was only 4 in Tucson. so it was a 5 1/2 hour drive today.  We will be in Midland until Thursday morning visiting with Joel, Brenda and Phoebe.

The portion of the interstate 10 from El Paso to Van Horn, Texas is called the "Texas Mountain Trail."  They aren't the Rockies, but they have a beauty to them.  Here are some pictures Irene took while I was driving.

 The next 6 pictures are of a mine.  If you look in between the ridges of the mountains in the picture below you see a white area.

In the pictures below you see a white dust in the air.

The cloud was around the building in the picture above.  As we drove by I could see the sign on the top of the building said "American Talc."  So, this is a Talc factory - a talc mine.  VERY interesting.

I'm a train buff.  I've owned trains since I was 3 years old - Lionel O gauge, HO gauge, N gauge, G gauge and now (in the RV) Z gauge.  My favorite railroad in the Union Pacific.  We saw a LOT of trains on this trip.  Here is a common sight 4 engines up front and about 150 cars and 1 or 2 engines in the rear (pushing) to get through the mountains here.

Below is a short video of one of the shortest trains we saw on the whole trip

Whether we like to admit it or not and regardless of our political bent it must be admitted that OIL is the "lifeblood" of the American Economy.  Virtually all goods come to market via the use of oil based derivatives whether by boat, plane, truck or train.  A large portion of the electrical grid is derived from petroleum being burnt in the production of electricity.  Plastics are typically petroleum based.  Midland is in the middle of the "Permian Basin" one of the larger Oil Fields in the continental US.  With the invention of "Fracking" the oil boom is on again in the basin.  Here are some pictures of the oil fields along I-20:

Here's a picture of the well being drilled and a "grasshopper" in the foreground:

And we close this post with 3 pictures of an Oil Refinery in Odessa, Texas

Return

capslock

a

s

d

f

z

x

c

v

b

n

m

,

.

/

shift

English

Deutsch

Español

Français

Italiano

Português

Русский

alt

alt

Preferences

A Horse with No Name!

o/`o/`
After 2 days in the desert sun
My skin began to turn red
After 3 days in the desert fun
I was looking at a river bed
And the story it told
Of a river that flowed
Made me sad to think it was dead
o/`o/`

America - "A Horse with No Name" - 1972 - Written By: Danny Bunnell

Today Josh, Chris, Irene and I went to Tohono Chul Botanical Garden.  It was beautiful but being in the desert and looking at its plant and animal live is always almost surreal.  I've got a lot of pictures below.  Enjoy!

I was a Geology Minor in college, so rocks fascinate me.  Here are some pictures of the notable rocks in the park:

The top 2 are the same stone taken from 2 different angles.  Both stones have Azurite and Malachite.  These are both copper ore sources.  You can see on these stones the same kind of "patina" that you get on a copper roof or pot.  It is cupric oxide - "rusted" copper.

The next picture is of a "petrified" piece of wood:

Petrification means to turn something to stone.  This is accomplished when a piece of wood is covered by sand and water runs through sand and then down through wood.  The primary element is wood is Carbon and the primary element in sand is Silicone.  Both Carbon and Silicone have 4 available electrons in their outer "shells" So as the water goes through the sand it picks up Silicone atoms which then percolate down through the wood and replace Carbon atoms on a one to one basis and the carbon atom is released into the ground.  "Petros" is the Greek word for "stone" - the wood become "Stoneified." 

The southwest was settled initially by neolithic peoples.  The picture below shows some of the "glyphs" (picture words) like Egyptian HeiroGLYPHics, but different!

The item above was quite possibly used as a grinding stone

For those that may be clamoring for pictures of Josh and Chris, here you go!:

One Picture of "yours truly"

And a picture of My Beloved and I:

Below are some of the pictures we got of Saguaro (Sahuaro) Cacti.  They grow in a VERY, narrow environ - just the right altitude, waterfall, heat etcetera are required, so even in the southwest and deserts they don't occur just anywhere naturally:

It looks like something REALLLY heavy sat on the one above

LOOK!  Identical Twin Saguaro Cacti above ^

Some say that this looks like a "Elephant Saguaro"

The picture below looks like a scene out of a 1950s western cowboy movie:

Here are some prickly pear cactus shots:

A picture of a cholla cactus is below:

And here are pictures of Barrel Cactus:

The two pictures below are Yucca plants.  One form of Yucca is called a "century plant" because some say it only grows one of these flowering stalks ONE TIME in about a century and then dies.

An interesting tree throughout Arizona is the Palo Verde tree.  That's Spanish Lingo for "Green Stick" tree.  Here's a couple pics of them:

The next picture is of a "Creosote Bush"

I took my iPhone to the "geniuses" at the Apple Store..... It isn't fixed.  Another appointment tomorrow at 10 AM.  Hopefully this time I get a new one.  It is still under warranty.  We will be getting ready to leave tomorrow.  We will have dinner with Chris and Josh either before or after Wednesday night Bible Class, depending on when Chris gets done work.

We also have a 3 PM appointment to meet with Dick Stockton's brother Scotty to get to know him and to try to move the ball of religious faith in his life.

We will be on the road Thursday morning heading back to Midland for 5 days (7th-11th) and then on to Camp Bee for the rest of February.