Old Year-New Year

 Here I sit at the house watching it rain, and rain, and rain. The neighbor is probably gonna start griping about the Big Horn parked in the way, blocking any sunlight from coming thru. I am glad that I put those extended gutters on the Rolling Condo. Notice the nice stream shooting off the back end of the trailer. I was tired of watching it rain, and decided to finally write a blog from the big End of Year- Start of Year campout. We have never camped in December, and when a friend of mine suggested we all go on a New Years Eve campout, I was gung ho. Five couples and trailers descended on South Toledo Bend State Park for a few days. I really thought the place would be empty, but suprisingly there were about 70 percent full.

 After getting set up, we joined the few brave souls by the fire. The wind was whistling and it was cold but everyone brought firewood and believe me, the fire was tended on a regular basis. It rained off and on the whole time we were there and between showers, we would gather at the fire, or get some food cooking. New Years Eve, we saw lots of fireworks across the lake in the little towns and subdivisions.

 Peggy and I took a nature walk, and took some photos of the lake and a bridge across the water on a hiking trail. The wind picked up a bunch as we got out in the open and it didnt take long for us to retreat to the underside of the hill out of the wind.

 This Louisiana State Park has a great visitors center with all kinds of interpretive exhibits for kids on all of the local wildlife and fish. I tried my best to get the photo of the resident eagle that nest near the lake, but they would not cooperate with me.

 You will notice my Satellite dish set up near the shore. The trees blocked the signal at my trailer but one of our group ran and got his 200 ft extension chord reel, filled with Satellite Cable, and ran to the shore line so that we could get a signal! Now thats some good campground buddy! I will soon have one of my own.

 This camground was very clean and well taken care of. I can vouch for the 50 amp hookup and very good Wifi service. Water hookups but no sewer at each site, and a good dump station on the way out of the park.

All to soon, it was time to pour myself out and start hitching up to go home and back to work. So we sang out the old year and rang in the new year, all in one weekend.

Fall Texas Rally Time

We  blasted off for Spring Texas to join our Chapter of the Heartland owners group, for the Fall Rally! We got T-Shirts! I am always glad to get T-Shirts as it is my primary wardrobe style for most of the year (except at work). I took a pic of our leaders trailer with the Rally Banner attached, to put in the blog, and Peggy took the one of my broad back to show the T Shirt. My Big Horn looked a little puny stacked up against a good many Landmark units attending the rally. The Landmark is the top of the Heartland line and is a very nice trailer. Ron Hoover RV of Houston came with a Landmark and a big Road Warrior, which is a big three axle toy hauler.

The Road Warrior has a garage in the back in with bed platform and bench seats that all raise up to the ceiling to make room for your toys to drive up the ramp. The ramp is the whole rear wall and lets down to the ground. Sorry I didnt get a pic of the ramp.

This Cyclone from New Mexico usually carries a big Harley Trike and the owners wife's Harley in the garage area, but this time they left the motorcycles at home and there were no free bike rides. Every nite the wagon master Jay had big campfires at his site and folks gathered around to swap stories (some of which may have been true) and do the "meet and greet". I did meet some folks for the first time and as always learn some things to look out for with my unit, and some quick fixes.  Ron Hoover was nice enough to also cater our Saturday nite meal, and provided Bar-B-Q with all the fixins. If anyone left hungry, it was there on fault.

And only in Texas, would we try to grill the largest Filet Mignon Steak in the World! I think it turned out pretty good but did not try any.  Okay I fess up, it's only a rock, but while I was playing with the photo editor of Picasa, I managed to lighten the picture up where you could see the people around the campfire. It also made the rock look like Filet Mignon. Now if I could just figure out how to load my pics after changing them to the blog. When I use the "add to blog" button on Picasa, it will only load one or two. If I use "insert image" from the blogspot editor, it does not load the changed photo, but the original. One of these days I have to spend the time learning this program. This winter will be a good time. If you see strange things popping up on the blog, just ignore it. I will be practicing.

Island in the Condo

The Project,,a Mesa Auxiliard De Cocina! huh,,,wait a minute. I don't read Spanish. I think it's Spanish. Could be Greek for all I know. I took a spanish class in high school, but paid more attention to the pretty girl who sat in front of me with the long black shiny hair.

That's better. A Kitchen Island, and this instruction booklet contains IMPORTANT safety instructions. That's the part I should pay attention too. My supervisor, helped me carry the shipping box from the carport out to the Rolling Condo for assembly. I had turned on the air condition, so the air was cool and the tools assembled. Arrggggg!

The box is unpacked, and all materials laid out in neat fashion and accounted for, as the directions call for. But it says I only need a Phillips head screwdriver and a hex wrench (which was included in the package). That can't be right, because everyone knows you gotta have tools to assemble stuff. Peggy get's the booklet and begins with Page 1.

Step one was no step at all. Just Attach drawer sides B to drawer front A, with Phillips head screw (1) and all the parts have little stickers on them. Step Two, insert drawer bottom C into the grooves of the drawer sides B and drawer A. Easy!

Step Three thru 5, put that other thingee together, using wooden dowels 4 into the bottom panel E, place back brace G onto side panel F and bottom panel E. blah blah blah,,,I can do this no sweat.

Ah skip a step or two? Put the wheels on it! Check! No need to read all those instructions. Wonder why she said "No Alcohol" should be used in the Assembly (per safety instructions). I didn't read that! where does it say that? I read Imported to Missouri from Indonisia. Huh! Not made in USA. Is anything made in USA today. On to step whatever it is.

Looking Good! Even got step Six done,,attaching the metal tube (towel rack) with wooden dowels. Door Handles put on. Drawer Handle installed. Top installed using "cam locks" onto the cam bolts! Check. And it hasn't collapsed one time. Amazing. I think we are up to step Thirteen! Time to break out the drinks! Wait there is a Caution on the last page.

This is what it  looks like with the Drop Leaf in the down position. What were those safety cautions? Oh yeah Don't use as a Seating Surface. Maximum Weight 30 lbs on top, 10 lbs in drawer, 15 lbs on shelf, 15 lbs on bottom panel, 5 lbs on towel rack. If you do so it could CAUSE INSTABILITY AND COULD CAUSE POSSIBLE INJURY. Wonder if any Indonesian people found that out the hard way. They are pretty small people.

This is where the Island will ride when we are towing. With the slides in, it fits. Lock the wheels and away we go. See married folk can do a project together that involves tools and teamwork. Brochure says thirty minutes for assembly. We took about an hour and half. We read the instructions carefully. I only had to remove one part that was backwards. Bought it from Wal Mart.com and had it shipped here via Fed Ex.

Wonder if this piano would fit in the living area of the Condo? Only weighs about a thousand pounds. Nah better read the safety instructions before even trying that. Getting hitch itch really bad. Need to take a trip somewhere.

Congrats to my Pop!

Today I have two reasons to post a new blog. One is to use the new editor function and alleviate my big gripe about placing photos here without taking all day to drag pics around where I want them to go. The other reason is to let the world (okay maybe not the world) or at least everyone that drops in here from time to time know that my dad who just turned 80 years old on the 15th of September also received his College Degree in Criminal Justice from Angelina College. We are all very proud of him for this. He has been attending this College off and on for a looooong time. While working two or three jobs at the time, and seeing that all six of his kids had the opportunity to go to college, he would always put his degree plan on hold to see that we got what we needed.

Confederate Rose

While pulling the Condo out for our trip tomorrow, I noticed that my Confederate Rose (Hibiscus Mubilis) is blooming. It blooms last of any flowering plants on the place, but it also blooms the nicest. Starts out very light pink and then as the day progresses, it turns dark pink. While we are gone to the RV Rally,,,the whole bush will bloom probably. As you can tell,,there are gobs of buds fixing to bloom. They last a day or so, then fall off. Bummer! I will cut them back to the ground this winter when the first good frost comes, then they will reach this ten foot or so height by late summer. Enjoy

New Truck / Same old S##$%$#

 You would think that a guy with a new truck would not have to do the poop dump and could just kick back and chill on Fathers Day, while listening to the radio! Not So! I talked Peggy into going to the Lake this weekend so I could test how the new Dodge 4x4 Dual Wheel Truck handles the Rolling Condo. The heat in East Tex has been horrible. The humidity makes it feel even worse. We headed out on Friday evening and made it to camp by 6pm. The next thirty minutes spent setting up and trying to get the Condo cooled down was just awful. We both were soaking wet and give plumb out by the time everything was in order. On Saturday we explored some, but to tell the truth, we did not explore beyond the confines of the truck any longer than a few minutes at the time. With Temps in the high 90's and the humidity near 100 percent, we stayed real close to the A/C. I did learn that I really like the way the dual wheels tow the Condo. Everything seems a lot more stable now. I even got to use the four wheel drive as I had to jackknife the trailer a bit to get it into the spot. The tires spun a bit, so I just kicked it into 4 wheel low and eased on back! Love That! The truck has a lot of stuff to learn, and I have been reading a lot about the operations of it in the Dodge Truck Owners Manual. I usually keep one handy for reference when I forget some function, but nowdays the manual is on a DVD that is included with your purchase. Thats not handy while your driving down the road, to open the manual in a laptop and try to find what your looking for. When I went back to the dealer, I requested a printed manual just like the DVD told me too. The service tech said sure, he could order it, but it would cost me fifty bucks! Does not seem right that you would have to pay for an owners manual. Peggy has taken the challenge up and fired off an email to the Dodge customer service folks, and we shall see. As far as the tank dumping goes. We left camp early this morning to beat the "rush to dump" that happens after everyone breaks camp to go home. We were first and did not have to wait in a line.

I am not exactly happy with the little bit of squat that the heavy trailer does to the new truck. May end up putting some air bags on it to level it out some more. I will be researching this some more to see the available options. Anyone with suggestions on this, feel free to drop me a line. I have even mastered the art of using the Sat. Radio in the new truck. It comes with a years free subscription to Sirius Radio. I have been surfing the channels to find interesting radio. You can find any type of News, Sports, Weather, and music that you would ever care to listen to. I found the Playboy Channel on Sirrius! After listening to some women breathing heavy with music playing in the background, I thought that was dang funny! I could not hear for sure what the women were saying but I am pretty sure it is sex related chatting. I found some better things to listen to on the comedy channels that one can listen to on Sat. After a year, I doubt I would ever actually subscribe to Sirrius. I can just listen to the old FM stations that I have always enjoyed and they are free! Until next time, safe travels to all.