You Can't Get Lost

 Hello All, Verizon has been quite the exercise.   Background I went to their store close to Bob and Loraine's as soon as I got into town on Wednesday.  I had nearly run out of hotspot time and it was time to go onto an unlimited time plan for me.    If you don't want to read about Verizon, Skip down to " Important Happening of the Day. " Details of Verizon Plans you don't have to read if you don't want to. I have several accounts, mine and Sally's, and an old tablet which never gets used anymore.  I do not play games, but watch YouTubes a lot (I own a motorhome, have a smoker and am learning about Sous Vide, so I watch a lot of  how-to's) and I am constantly looking up facts and details.  I also have a iPhone 8, which is only 4G, so I'm not using the 5G services.  However, I end up doing a lot of hotspotting when I travel because most (all?) campgrounds have lousy WiFi connections and it's difficult to log-on to many.  (Hotspotting...

 Simple day today.  Dumped my tanks, half filled the water and took off for Phoenix.  It was a pretty easy drive of 200 miles, except from Flagstaff to Phoenix is downhill with sections at 6% grade, so you have to be aware of your speed (I drive at 60 mph) and your brakes.  That all ended fine, except catching the beginning of Phoenix afternoon traffic.  Driving a 50 foot long motorhome and tow vehicle requires planning to hit holes in the traffic lanes once you know how the next section looks.  I envy those new rigs with side cameras to see what the traffic to the side and back looks like.  But, I made it here without too much  problem. I'm staying with Bob and Loraine, long time college friends.  In fact, the history is I tried to date Loraine freshman year and she kept coming up with excuses not to go out with me.  When I finally pressed her as to what was going on, she explained she was dating a guy at her church.  His name was ...

 WooWoo!  Today was train day.  I've been looking forward to this since I learned about the Grand Canyon Railway the last time Sally and I were here, 2010ish? or so.  That is the reason for the stop in Williams, AZ instead of Flagstaff (for the Lowell Observatory and the 24" Clark Refractor telescope [which Lowell used to map the canals on Mars.]).   The original train its first scheduled run on September 17, 1901.  It was The way to travel during the early 20th century, but by the 1960s, cars became more common and the preferred way to go.  The train made its last run on June 30, 1968.  Its equipment was sold, but the tracks still remained.  In 1989, Max Biegert decided that train travel was becoming popular again and started rebuilding the railway.  Locomotives and cars were located around the country and were brought here to be restored and put into service.  They can do all the restoration here in Williams.   Trai...

 Today was a travel day.  Everything loose was thrown into sinks or boxes or cabinets.  I decided to not dump there because I had been sitting there for nine days and I'd rather have the tanks sloshed around good before I dump.  I'll do it before I leave here (Williams, AZ).   The drive to Williams, AZ was uneventful, which is always nice.      Not to say without incidence.  When I stopped to get gas in Kingman, the Love's station was packed and I had to wait to get to a pump.  Not unusual.  I had to pull in behind a car that was filling but didn't have problems stretching the hose to the filler spout.  It did take a while to fill, and it ended up at $140 (at $4.49/gal, which was cheaper than I paid in LV filling the Sonic).  The car in front pulled out and I was just getting ready to pull out also when a car backed into the space and blocked me.  (I can't back up because I'm pulling a car behind me.)  He pu...

 This is IT!  It’s the BIG GAME!!! And I could care less who wins.  I have a slight preference for one, but it is not great enough to put my enthusiasm into the positive side.   I’m sitting in the stands across from where I sat all week in the top picture.   This is the seat that I paid for. It looked like ants running around on the floor.  I started to get a nose bleed and dizzy from being at that elevation, so I moved down to the lower circle.  It ended up I sat in the middle of one teams section.  I sat there the first half, then switched to the other side near the door so I could run out quickly and beat the car crunch from having only two exits from a huge parking lot.  In fact, I stood at the top of the stairs with a group of other people with similar ideas, and left with the buzzer still ringing in my hearing aids.  Boise beat San Diego 53-52.  It was actually an interesting game, with changing leads back and forth ...

Hmmm, it seems to be an appropriate "Day 13" for the the outcomes.   Both my home teams lost.   Bahhh! The #4Pokes played #1Boise State, the team you love to hate.  We got behind from the start, and were down 14 at the half, 37-23.  The team was still down by 12 at the 4:30 mark, and then went on a scramble, getting it to 64-61 with 30 seconds left.  And then dropped off to end at 68-61.  We outscored them 38-31 in the second half.  It was one of those games that you felt we could have won if the run started two minutes earlier.  The team of freshman forward, Graham Ike and junior guard Hunter Maldonado, seemed stunned and did not put together their best games.  The Pokes are on the bubble for going to the NCAA or the NIT.  We'll find out Sunday at the NCAA Selection Party at the Rochelle Center.  Either way, we've got some more men's basketball to watch.  (Hopefully Women's also.) The #2Colorado State Rams played a c...

Spoiler Alert:  Don’t look at the Banner Photo until you get to the end of this blog! The Poke Nation is gathering. There has been more gold and brown at almost every game.  Playing some catch up. The men’s pigtail games were played yesterday starting at 11:00. The Cowboy Joe get together was it 1:00, so I opted to go to that.  It was at the Virgin Hotel (skip obvious jokes here) with open bar and Mexican num-nums.  Meeting new friends This is how I saw the band and cheerleaders: The world's fastest rendition of RagTime Cowboy Joe, on time-lapse. Or a picture of the band and cheerleaders if the video never processes. While checking hotels around Thomas and Mack, I found the Serene Boutique Hotel at $47/night (+$30 LV resort fee) so reserved for Wednesday night.  So after the get together, I checked in and took a nap, woke up early enough to go to the CSU alumni gathering they hold every night and had a hot dog.  Their band came in and then the coach who gav...

 After losing the game yesterday, it kind of lowered the energy level.  So, it was a perfect morning to do laundry.  I still had one tshirt left, and one pair of socks.  I packed for ten days and it worked out great.  I picked up some soap pods and a guy in the RV park doing his said he bought a big box of dryer sheets and gave me a hand full.  The first game today was UNLV 61 over Air Force 50 as was expected. You gotta respect Air Force, because they recruit a different type of student than all the other schools they play, and they are always competitive.    The second game was New Mexico vs Colorado State.  That game was really up in the air at the start.  Father forgive me, for I have sinned.  I’ve been talking with a CSU fan who convinced me to sit with my alma mater. We sat on the fourth row behind the team, so me and my gold shirt with Steamboat on the lapel were very visible when they were showing crowd shots.  And CSU ...

 Aaarghhhh!   Nothing seems to be working!!!   I can’t get into the resorts WiFi on my laptop so I’m hotspotting off my phone.  It’s dropping the resort’s Wi-Fi and going in to LTE where I have one bar.  (I could use a bar right now.)  Safari won’t let me enter the blog editor, and Chrome tried repeatedly to get me to open a new blog, which I didn’t want to do.  Maybe I can get more done at Thomas and Mack Arena.  I’m sending for now while I’m still logged on and I’ll be back later.   Hi, just finished the #1UNLV(82) vs #9 Utah St (69) which was never contested.   Coming up is #4Nev vs #5 Air Force.   This should be a good one.   I always enjoy USAFA.  Always a good honest competitor, even in steel bridges and concrete canoes. It was always one of my favorite regional conferences with ASCE. The good game yesterday was#8Fresno St vs #9Utah St.  Fresno was ahead most of the game, but competitive all the way. Fresno was ...

  I reached the first major goal today.  I made it to Las Vegas and will start going to the Mountain West Tournament tomorrow.  I've almost completed 45% of the trip in the motorhome. I said yesterday that I was able to fill my water tank and clean it out because I was out of freezing weather.  When I left Sevier, UT this morning, it was in the mid 40's. By the time I had driven 23 miles to where I70 joins I15 between Salt Lake and Las Vegas, it had started snowing and blowing.  It snowed, sometimes pretty heavily, for the next 50 miles.  Since the road surface was warmer over the past couple of days, it continued to spray water, salt, silt, and sand on the windshield.  I used a lot of the windshield wiper fluid.  It was pretty intense.  And the wind blew most of the way here.  I was getting buffeted pretty hard on the wet surface.  But I have prevailed.   And I was worried about driving into Las Vegas.  It was 4...

 Red-letter day for me!  I've decided that it is going to be warm enough to fill my water tank.  However, it took a while to clear the antifreeze out of the lines and tank, it is a process of diluting the water and antifreeze in the tank and then pumping it out, about six times.  Normally, you just dump it to drain the tank, but that's not good etiquette in an RV Park, so I had to drain the gray water tank three times and will have to again tomorrow before I pull out.  And I unhooked the water hose so the hydrant wouldn't freeze, just in case.   I had some "help" today, the Guard Goose.  This old honker followed me around the whole time I was working outside and stood outside the door when I was inside, honking the whole time.  He became quite a nuisance and was very angry when I didn't pay attention to him.  Angry enough that he left three calling cards within three feet of my door.  I didn't catch the first one unti...

  Hi All,  It was a big day at Jere and Tom's house.  They bought a ranchette (admittedly a healthy one of 10 acres) two years ago.  You can see some of the two acres where their house and shop are located on the aerial view with my motorhome.  The rest is rented to a local farmer, so they get some income from that land.  Anyway, when they bought it, they anticipated doing some extensive remodeling.  The west side of the house had an enclosed walkway, sunroom, bathroom, storage/laundry room which was really poorly laid out.  And the kitchen had a large freestanding wall to separate it from the living room.  (You can see some of the wall  framing in the pictures of Tom cooking yesterday.)   As they got started into the demolition, they found some questionable construction in the rafters which required some major support work.  The contractor ordered a new set of engineered rafters in October.  They were ...