Yesterday we had a quiet day at home, one of those relaxing days when we didn’t do anything that we didn’t feel like doing. No phone calls, no visitors, just us. We need days like that once in a while, and lately they’ve been hard to come by.
I spent most of the day writing, and knocked out two new chapters in my next Big Lake book. I’d like to say that the things I learned with the training DVD on the Dragon Dictate software helped, but the truth is, I still found myself going back and making so many corrections that I finally gave up and just went back to typing. I really want to make this program work, but so far I’m just not that impressed with it.
While I was doing that, Terry was working on a crochet project and reading a new book on spinning that she bought the other day. She made us a delicious chalupa dinner, and we spent the evening doing pretty much what we did all day, along with watching a little bit of TV.
This is one of our favorite Thousand Trails preserve, and we really like the Verde Valley area of central Arizona. But the park has two drawbacks that we really don’t like; very slow internet speeds, even though we have four bars of 3G Verizon service, and low water pressure. Sometimes you have to work at it to take a shower.
We booked two weeks here, and since I got the Elite upgrade to our membership while we’ve been here, we could actually stay for three weeks. But it’s getting pretty hot, up into the high 90s all this next week, so we’ll probably head out for the White Mountains and cooler temperatures sometime this coming week. Besides, hitch itch is bound to set in before too much longer.
When we leave here, we’ll probably spend a week or so in Show Low, our old hometown, getting a grandkid fix before we head on down the road from there. We need to get to South Dakota to renew our driver’s licenses by Terry’s birthday, the third week of June, so we’re in no rush.
We don’t have a hard and fast itinerary, but there are a couple of things we would like to do along the way. I’ve always wanted to stop at the Big Texan steakhouse in Amarillo, which is famous for their 72 ounce steaks. If you can eat one, along with all the trimmings, in one hour, it’s free. I’m not even going to attempt that, but a lot of folks who have eaten there tell me everything on the menu is delicious, and I’m hoping there’s a ribeye with my name on it.
As we head north from there, I want to stop in Pender, Nebraska, home of Blue Ox to drop off the steering stabilizer they sent me, that we decided not to use, and have them take a look at our Aventa tow bar. It’s a great unit and we’ve used it for over five years now. I’d like to have them check it out and see what kind of maintenance it may need.
It’s nice not having a place we have to be until our Ohio rally in early September. It’s been a long time since we’ve had that kind of latitude in our schedule.
Thought For The Day – A cartoonist was found dead in his home. Details are sketchy.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Don’t know if you are near a Cattlemen’s Restaurant (chain) , but I just had a fantastic ribeye dinner there for dinner. $21 included salad, potato choice, beans,and hot dour dough bread. YUMMY
When we are at a park with low water pressure and we want to shower, we jjust put water in our fresh water tank and use the onboard pump for showering. This way we can always have a good shower.
Same as Jon. Always keep some water in the tank,never can tell when the water may be cut off.
Joe
Hey Nick, If you haven’t been there before, check out the Palo Duro Canyon just south of Amarillo. We think its the most beautiful location in Texas. Lots of history there too. Our US Army took 3000 horses from the Comanche there. The plaque fails to mention that they stole them back over the next three nights as well as a lot of Army mounts as well.
We might be camping at the Blue Ox but the end of May. It depends how close we can get to West Point, NE, for my 50th class reunion. Weather is great around here, in the 60’s and blue skies. Here being the Amana Colonies in Iowa.
BTW, our tachometer started dancing on the dial like stepping on a scales and when it did our “check engine” light came on. After a week and several hundred miles we finally went to the Coach Care in Cedar Rapids. What great service!
They got us all fixed in about 3 hours and under $500.
What was wrong, you ask? Some little part called a “speed sensor”. Never heard of it before–live & learn.
Marlene
You should DEFINITELY try to eat at Big Texan. The food is excellent!
glad you are still relaxing and just enjoy the peace and quiet. We had a busy day moving from Wheeler Oregon to Black Point Washington. It was warm day thank heavens, did not do to much crying over the high bridges and tunnels on the way here. Took an adventure once we got here, the road with late warning was not for vehicles over 30ft we are 35ft without the tow, curves at 10 miles hr, interesting. Missed the park thanks to GPS, Mike hit a water connection while parking, very tight area to maneuver, called the manager immediate reporting it, not a big deal, quick fix, got set up just to have to move because of bad electric box. Went to dinner with good friend that came by. What a mothers day, by the way Happy Mothers day Terry,Nick go for the steak~
Nick —– I’m curious to know why you chose not to use the steering stabilizer. We’re about to buy one and may have second thoughts after reading this.
Jim, Neither of the two brackets Blue Ox sent would not fit our Spartan chassis. In the meantime the guys at Redlands Truck & RV had the Safe-T-Plus steering stabilizer and the correct bracket, so I went with it instead of the Blue Ox unit. I wrote about our first trip with the Safe-T-Plus in a blog post a few days ago. It really made a difference in our coach driving in the wind.