Another day at Lone Star

Slept in this morning till 7:25 am. Sandy had been up since 6:25am and was on the couch catching up on the news which mainly was the tragedy at Ft Hood. The morning wasn’t quite as cold as the previous mornings and the wind had shifted back out of the south. Overall the day was great for just doing some odd and ends around the home.

I was able to get upon the roof and finished installing the rear clearance light lenses. While up there I had Sandy pass up the leaf blower and blew the masses of leafs that had collected on it. I cleaned all the vents and applied a coating of 303 UV protectant over them. Made some more pile of leafs with my blower. I will be so glad when we have that first frost or hard freeze to knock the remainder leafs off the trees.

So far I really like the new Wi-Fi connection. I haven’t noticed a great bit difference in speed from the prior DSL and the broadband wireless connection that I am now using. Might be a small difference but nothing major. The big plus is being able to get online anywhere I have a Verizon  signal.

My friend Mark with Rving with Poppa called and said that Tiffin had finished his hit list for warranty work and they would be headed back to Texas in the morning. I know they will be happy to be back as when they returned from their big adventure they were only settled in at base for just a short time.

Received a call from my sister this evening and its official she was on her way home from the hospital. Thanks to all who lifted her up in their prayers. I know she will be glad to be home and usually the healing process is much better than in a hospital environment.

Well the  NASCAR truck series race is just about to start at the Texas Motor Speedway so its time to draw this to a close and enjoy some racing. Boogedy– boogedy

Until next time….MtnAire Travlers.
Keep smiling

Wi-Fi at The Mountain Aires’ Home

Woke up to another beautiful fall day here at Lone Star. My list of chores today were my own personal choosing. I had to replace some clearance lights on the side and rear cap of the Motor Home. The original lenses were either faded or discolored from UV. After that I wanted to do a more permanent mount of my BatteryMinder I purchased several months back for my chassis batteries. I chose the small compartment near my batteries for the main box. The cables all have disconnect plugs were all I now have to do is unplug the cable, place the weatherproof caps on the connector ends and travel. Once at the destination all I do now is undo the caps and plug the cables back in.
I am not real happy with the AC wiring as for right now I’m using an extension cord for my AC power. I’m thinking about adding a 110V receptacle in that compartment with the Minder but not quit sure what I need to do yet. I’ll need to process this some more. After this task Sandy wanted me to move some leafs away from the MH entry with my leaf blower. Well let me tell you I just didn't do the entry I blew leafs away all around and into many piles. I will have to wait tell her brother returns from deer hunting (season opens Saturday) to gather and haul them off in his bucket on the tractor. I should have known this was coming as I noticed here lately that his neck was beginning to swell.
Some of the old timers in this area say this end of Lake O” the Pines was at its highest level they’ve seen. I drove over there and took several pictures these being the best.
    About 3pm this evening FedEx drove up to the motor home and delivered my MBR1000 CradlePoint Wireless router.

After reading the quick start instructions I began the task of setting up the router with my Verizon USB760 Air card and laptop. Everything was going along smoothly until I reached the instant install wizard window and everything just went away.

Oops! What did I do wrong??? Just couldn’t get it to do anything. So. as Sandy always reminds me just to stay calm in these kind of matters…. I let out a bloody murder scream (Sandy was at her Mom’s) “Now what do I do??) Thought a minute and said I’ll call my friend Mark…no that want do as his CradlePoint is different than mine. Next, it was my new Canadian friend Rick he just recently wrote about this in one of his blogs. Didn’t have his phone number maybe I could email him. No, that won’t work either as I don’t believe I could explain my problem in text. Finally a little light came on and said…. “Dummy call the 3G Store and talk to one of their techs.”  and what a neat tech I got. Ed at the 3G Store walked me through the steps to reset my CradlePont and then manually set op the router for Wi-Fi. He told me this router didn’t necessarily like being setup by the wizard and do it manually. Bingo!! in about 15 minutes we had Wi-Fi at the Mountain Aire home. Come to find out Ed was talking from Austin TX where we retired from after living there for 28 years. Ed was very personable and knowledgeable about his product and I would rate him a ten with that being the highest rating I could give. Will give this a trial period before calling my DSL provider and cancel their service.
Oh it looks like Sandy’s job may be coming to an end. Will have to provide more information as we learn more.

Until next time….MtnAire Travlers.

PS Our prayers and thoughts go out to those families that were affected in the Ft Hood shootings.

Long Day of Waiting

We were up at 6am for our trip into Longview to take Mom Alice to meet her new doctor, pickup my insulin at the Regional VA Office, drop by for a visit with her sister Pam and finally some earns with a quick stop at Wally World for some supplies. We picked her mom up at 7:30am and headed to the local Whataburger for our morning breakfast. We ordered three one half orders of (1) biscuits and sausage gravy. This was Mom Alice’s very first experience and taste of this meal. Let me tell you now she gobble it up and wanted to know if there was more. Even later that morning she mentioned several times she wish she had some biscuits and gravy. Sandy being the carrying one she is discouraged her from getting more. But, I’m willing to bet the next time we drop by a Whataburger this will be what she orders and it probably will be the full order (2 biscuits).

After breakfast we traveled over to VA to pickup my insulin. Checked in and was told to be seated and the pharmacists would be with me shortly. Five minutes go by then twenty and next Sandy comes in asking what's the hold up as her mothers doctor appointment was in 15 minutes. Back up to the desk I go with this dilemma and she said she would check. About five minutes later they call my name and said the pharmacists wasn't there right then and some one else would help me.Finally was able to pick it up and scooted out to the Jeep to continue our drive to Mom Alice’s doctor appointment at 9:45am. Got there dropped them off at the front door and drove to the parking garage. On more than finding a parking place Sandy calls and says they moved her mothers appointment out to 2pm.
I being the cool and collected dude that I am not said “What are we going to do for the next four hours”. Sandy said we could visit her sister Pam until that time gets here. I suggested before going there lets first drop my HP laptop off at the repair shop and get our supplies for groceries,  so we wouldn’t have to do that after we finished with the doctor visit. With those two chores out of the way we went to her sisters home. Visited till just after the lunch time and decided to go to Chic-Fil-a for lunch. Pam’s husband Mike would also join us. After lunch we stuck around visiting till about 1:30 pm and left for the doctor’s appointment.  Dropped them off at the front door and went to find a parking place and I waited in the Jeep.
About an hour goes by and no Mom Alice or Sandy. I then wondered if her cell phone is not working (Sandy dropped it on the pavement just as she got out the door) and they are walking the lot looking for me. I waited about another twenty minutes and could not take it any longer and called Sandy’s cell phone. Opps! she answered saying they had finished with the doctor and now were headed to the lab for blood work. They finally show up and before heading home back to her sister’s we go to pickup our groceries and my insulin.

To shorten this up and put it out of it’s misery all I need to say is we finally got back to Lone Star around 5:30 pm and collapsed from exhaustion . What a long but eventful day!

 

Until next time….MtnAire Travlers.

One Hundred and Twenty Dollars' in Quarters

This is what $120.00 in quarters look like. I empty the change out of my pockets in to a jar each night. This is about six months of savings. Cashed it in at a change vending machine in the local Brookshire's grocery store over in Dangerfield about six miles north of where we are staying. This will help go toward a Verizon Air Card USB760 and a Cradlepoint MBR1000 router. We’ve decided to go to the air card instead of DSL here in Lone Star for two reasons.
1) Most of the full timing friends we know are using the Verizon air card and most have good things to say about it. Rick has published on his October 14th blog a pretty good in-depth study about different air cards/routers. You just might want to jump over there as he also talks about Wi-Fi and more.
2) When we go to Canton and other places that do not have internet or Wi-Fi we would be able to access the internet as well as read and post blogs. While at Canton I use Sandy’s Iphone 3G for this and in Edge its not the fastest. Also while at Canton this time Sandy received an urgent email from AT&T stating she was using excessive Off-net work while roaming in areas not directly served by AT&T. In other words we were being hijacked by other carrier towers (Verizon) to be exact. This made no sense as we know Canton has at least two AT&T towers and we’ve also showed the At&T emblem on the display screen.
Also there coverage map showed this to be  an AT&T coverage area. They in fact all but said if we wanted to change to another carrier we could if we couldn’t reduce this “Off-net Usage”.  Our question to them was why should they penalize us for something we didn’t do nor had control over. Is it our fault that the other carrier’s signal is stronger than the AT&T’s. It’s not resolved yet so I guess we will continue to monitor the on screen display to make sure it states we are in a AT&T coverage area.

There was another photo I meant to post on Monday's blog of the flooding at Canton. This was the weekend before our flood.
This is about two-three foot in depth and goes through the city and Henry Lewis pavilions off Dealers Row.

Received some good news on my sister Dren. She just  might get to go home this Friday. We continue to give thanks for what the Lord is doing for her and pray for continued healing.
Sandy thought she might get to work today. Her brother called and said meet him and the two mowers in Pittsburg. He also wanted her to pickup the two weed eaters on her way.  She was gone for about an hour and called said they were bogging down and would not mow. It might now be Thursday before they will try again. Mowed the three acres today as well as did a little raking leafs in piles for pickup in her brothers tractor with a front end bucket for hauling to the burn pile. There is still a lot of leafs remaining on the trees so I don’t know why we are jumping the gun. We will just have to rake again.
Until next time….MtnAire Travlers.

November 2009 1st Monday Canton TX

Friday October 23, 2009
We were up by 6:30am to get things ready for traveling.The sun wasn’t quite up at this time so we prepared the inside first. As it got lighter I did all the make ready things outside and we are on the way.  I wanted to try my Microsoft Streets and Maps 2009 with GPS. So after I got it set up and turned on worked like a champ. We know our way to Canton but this was our first opportunity to try it out. (Click on photos to enlarge) The nice thing its bigger and easier to see than Miss Gabby our Garmin. Also it doesn’t say recalculating when we make a turn we want to travel. The only short comings is we do not have a slide out tray in the dash for the computer. When I put the laptop on top of the dash it interferes with Sandy’s ability to see out the passenger mirror. So, I need to come up with a small table to set it on when traveling. We also noticed diesel at $2.75 is about $0.26 cents per gallon higher than last month.

Arrived at Canton about 10:30am without incident. Pulled into 1st Mondays grounds and already someone has roped off about ten RV spots along the creek side with rope and barrels. We don’t know if its Marty’s group from Coachlight Carthage, MO (our RV dealer) who comes to Canton with his group every November. We could not see where there was any water damage from the flood they had here last week. They were however sweeping the north end of our pavilion where the water left a lot of sand after that end flooded.

Saturday October 24,2009
The IPod Touch alarm went off at 6:00am. This is what we saw when we went outside. What a difference in 24 hours from stormy rainy weather to just a beautiful day, We were headed out to Tyler,TX for our monthly outing to some of our favorite shops and a couple of used book stores. Sandy loves to read when she has the time to devote herself to this hobby. As you can tell from this photo of our MH it was quite cool this morning. Notice the outline of the framing on the side walls caused by the dew especially their spacing.

The sidewall aluminum framing are on 16” centers which is one of many reasons we selected a Newmar product. At the time they also had a three year bumper to bumper warranty which was another reason we selected them. They have since changed this to I believe the industry standard of one year.
The Texas Longhorns continued their undefeated season by winning 41-7 over Missouri. Also them Aggies put the hurt on Texas Tech 52-30.

Sunday October 25, 2009
The large number of RV spots that were roped off  turns out to be a group called “Traveling Cajuns” from Louisiana. They were all out Saturday evening around a large pit camp fire. I'm sure sharing stories, jokes and travel experiences. This is the earliest Rver’s in this number have arrived at Canton. Sooooo it looks like we may be in for a good crowd and hopefully a good selling month. Went to our favorite eating place “Dairy Palace” for a Grand Slam breakfast (two eggs, hash browns, toast, four pieces bacon, two pancakes and gravy) we share for $6.49. 

What is that saying “Red Sky In The Morning Sailors Take Warning”. This was our sunrise this morning and the forecast is 90% chance of thunder storms tonight. This place literally flooded last week. Lets hope there has been enough runoff between storms that this area doesn’t flood again. It’s official now The Weather Channel is saying this part of Texas has had the rainiest October on record. We certainly will not take issue as we have been right in the middle of it all month. Sandy’s brother called and said for her to not report to work this coming week.

Monday October 26, 2009-“Sailors Take Warning”
Well so much for drying out. It started in this morning about 1am and hasn’t let up yet. Yes, its raining again and we are flooding in the usual spots as attested by the following photos:
This is the north end of our pavilion. Vendor hooking up to pull out due to rising water.

This is the creek. It has about a foot of water going over it. This is the row of motor homes shown on Sunday. Get’s much deeper and they will have to evacuate.
The water has a good current and is about 3-4 foot deep in this area. 

A food vendors booth 75 yards south of our booth.

The rain has let up a little now (12:35pm) and the water is slowly going back down. Lets hope this is it for awhile. None of the Rver’s have pulled out yet.

Tuesday October 27, 2009
It’s cooler this morning, 48F  and no rain. The skies however are dark and gloomy. Might see some sun this afternoon. 
This is our neighbors fur kid across the way Pumpkin. You couldn’t tell that she is one spoiled dog. Her own chair for setting in behind their booth. She is of the Vizula breed. Her hair is real short, very little shedding and she easily gets cold. Their origin I understand is Hungary and they are excellent at bird hunting.

Marty’s group from Missouri is finally here. They must have got in late Monday as they are parked in a different spot on the grounds. It looked like their is ten rigs in his group.They are on a site where the ground is not level at all. Notice the coaches with their front wheels off the ground. I’m not sure if this is something I would do.  Hopefully the HWH jacks and Spartan chassis will hold up and they have those rear tires cocked.
The vacant area next to Marty’s coach (London Aire w/green & white stripped awning) is where they gather for meals and socialization. Things are looking up. We’ve had partly cloudy skies this afternoon with sun. I have counted 158 RV’s on this side of the creek. November Canton is looking very promising.

Wednesday October 28, 2009 
Started out as a gorgeous day but it has gradually turned into a much cooler and overcast day.Today is our youngest son Tim’s 39th Birthday. Sandy and I called him this morning and wished him a Happy Birthday! We finished our booth setup as there are early shoppers out there walking the pavilions and grounds. We suspect these to be from the RV groups that have gathered here early.
Canton Fire Department came to the grounds to put out a fire in one the trash dumpsters. Seems one of the campers threw his hot coals from his BQ grill into the garbage can.
We had a lot of fun with Sandy this evening with a remote Whoopee Cushion. While she was gone to Wally World one of the ladies in the booth across the aisle had purchased a Whoopee Cushion with a remote control at the local CVS. She installed it under Sandy’s purse demo table. When Sandy returned she was standing near her table. Frank our next door neighbor (part of the scheme) came over (we were across the aisle just a watching) to Sandy and leaned over her table and started talking. Carla waited a few minutes before she hit the remote. Sandy being the innocent one she is first didn’t say anything but the expression on her face was worth a million dollars. Carla hit the remote again and again we all couldn’t hold it back any longer we burst into laughter. Sandy just looked at Frank and then asked “what’s that noise…. was that you”?  Sandy said at first I didn’t want to say anything because I knew it wasn’t me and I didn’t want to embarrass Frank. Yes, we do have fun at Canton.
Tonight Carla and Don prepared a ham in her crock pot and invited everyone over for dinner. We had pulled pork, potato salad, baked beans, mac & Cheese with homemade coconut and pecan pies.  What a feast and yes the Whoopee machine did a number on another poor un-expecting soul. 

Thursday October 29, 2009

Sandy was up early as she wanted to make biscuits (can) for everyone. Our neighbors across the way furnished the pulled pork we had last night for the biscuits. Yummy 

Heavy rain with thunder and lighting settle in again around 2:30 pm. We are under a tornado watch until 7pm tonight. Rain let up about 4pm and skies remained overcast. Our Thursday crowd was a little better than previous months. We had vegetable soup, corn bread and sweet potato pie for our group get together tonight.

Friday October 30, 2009
Our next door friend Mary Kay knock on our door this morning and greeted us with two biscuits, egg, sausage and cheese sandwiches  she made. Yummy. What great friends we have here at Canton. Right now we have a slow drizzle and much cooler temperature than yesterday morning. They say this system should gradually get out of here by this evening. We are blessed as the same system that came through here yesterday spun off five tornados in Shreveport, LA.

A long time friend of ours Doug Lown with his family dropped by our booth this morning. Doug is Marty’s oldest son and he is responsible for making us such good deals we purchased both our Dutch Star and Mountain Aire from their dealership Coachlight in Carthage, MO.  Doug and his family came down with Marty’s group and all will return Sunday.
A day of surprises! Our dear friends Joe (Speedy) and Sherri dropped by our booth. We met their friends Mike & Leslie who are right now traveling with them to the different places Sherri’s job takes them. We visited for a brief time and they said their “see ya’s”. Boy was it good seeing some old friends.  Wish we could have shared some stories together. Also James & Linda (they use to sell John Deere merchandise here at 1st Monday) came buy to tell us they had signed up to be workkampers again this next April-October at the RV Park in Montrose CO. They worked there this year and loved it. They said their average workdays was about 15 days a month. Tonight was our night to feed the group. Sandy prepared chili dogs with all the trimmings. We also had a excellent coconut pie for desert.

Saturday October 31. 2009
What a difference 24 hours make . The weather is just gorgeous this morning 47F with a high expected to be 66F.There is not a cloud in the sky and we actually had shoppers coming through the pavilion before 8am. The crowd is big but not the typical fall crowd! You don’t have to go with the flow like usual. In fact you can get out on your cell phone which is very unusual for this time of the year.
More friends dropped by Skeeter and Myra Nidermaier (they did craft shows with us as well as 1st Monday ). They live in San Antonio but told us they were in the process of selling their home to move back to Helena, MT were they are originally from. They miss the Big Sky Country and the mountains.
Marty and Doug came by and told us bye. Doug did say that Newmar was back working five days a week now. He also said they have had a pretty good last ninety days moving some of their inventory and would go into the winter months in pretty good shape. Marty also said he was glad they got in late Monday and didn’t park on the creek side that had all the water problems Monday.

Overall Saturday’s crowd and sales were mediocre. Tomorrow is another day and you can never predict what your Sunday will be like. We didn’t have to many ghosts and goblins come by our booth for the traditional “Trick or Treat”. Our neighbor Sandra fixed the group pinto beans, crawfish corn bread and tamales for our dinner tonight. The crawfish corn bread was a keeper. YumYum. Happy Halloween everybody.
 No. 2 Texas 41-OSU 14

Sunday November 1, 2009
We set our clocks back one hour before going to bed last night. When the alarm went off it look different in the bed room. What's this it was sunlight. Did we set our clock right?  Yes we are back where the sun rises and sets sooner than we’ve been use to seeing it. I wish they would just leave it alone. This is what an old Indian thanks about our time changes.

Most of the RVer’s pulled out this morning before the Sunday crowds arrived and blocked them in. Stood and watched them go through their make ready preparations the 5er’s had a certain procedure and the motor home had theirs. A lot of the procedures are the same I know but it was interesting just watching. Some checking it twice and others just once. There was a part of me wishing that was us getting ready to go off to another adventure like some of our friends. Al & Kelly with the Bayfield bunch on their way over to the Great Southwest in Arizona, Mark &  Dortha Rving with Poppa are up in Camp Red Bay getting  warranty work done on their Phaeton, Joe & Sherri with Speedhitch are off to Sherri's next work assignment.

Over all we had a good 1st Monday. So as the sun sets in the west this evening so does it close another Canton 1st Monday weekend.