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tbutler

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Blog Comments posted by tbutler


  1. Merry Christmas Gramps, Diane and family!

    We just watched It's a Wonderful Life last night, on TV late, Louise finally had to give up before the end of the movie but we summarized the remainder between us as we prepared for bed. We had just watched another movie that captures the childhood in the 50's, Christmas Story, with Ralphie in a quest for his Daisy BB gun.

    I enjoyed reading about your the connection to It's a Wonderful Life. Wishing you and yours continued success in your ventures and many enjoyable motorhome trips in the coming year!

    Tom


  2. Keep us posted with your travel stories here on your Blog. For answers to your questions you will get a better response by posting them in the Forum rather than here. I would suggest that you post two queries on the Forum, one for the dog-friendly parks and a second for the diner/dives along your route.

    I like the way you plan a trip. We do this often, pick several key destinations and then just set out and find what we can along the way. It looks like a good plan to me.


  3. I tried looking up Canyon Lakes RV Resort and can't find a campground with that specific name. I was searching on www.rvparkreviews.com and had no luck though I can find several campgrounds listed under the community name, Canyon Lake. I've been to the Canyon Lake area, NE of San Antonio. Is this the area where you will be staying?


  4. Thanks for your comments Jackhal. I envy you, Maine is a great place to be in a heat wave. We're going to be hot for at least the next week. Sometimes more than others but it's still hotter than the Maine coast. None of my traps have caught the mouse so I guess it was long gone before I started the clean up. At least no further evidence for now. Thanks for the good wishes for my recovery. Every day brings progress.


  5. Ouch! I keep a double back-up of my hard disk on two separate removable drives. If you have any high value information on a computer, you absolutely must back up that data. Hard disk drives of incredible capacity cost little more than $100 now. Think of them as cheap insurance! By the way, they only work if you use them - constantly. You can back up once a week if you are willing to risk that much data. I always try to back up shortly after adding more pictures to my collection.

    By the way, this kind of message should be a post on the forum rather than a blog unless you intend to turn this into a continuing story about the travels of your lost laptop! You'll get many more readers than here on the blog. New forum articles are highlighted on the home page, you only find the blogs if you go to the blog page.

    Good luck finding your laptop.


  6. Well, hello neighbor!

    We're at Edinburg, about 80 miles to the northwest of your location. Tomorrow I'm leading a group of bicyclists on a visit to Resaca de la Palma State Park and World Birding Center at Olmito, near Brownsville. We drive to the park arriving about 10:30 and then ride around enjoying any wildlife we can spot, mostly birds but you never know. After the ride we're off to lunch somewhere in Brownsville. We have a ride in Port Isabel scheduled sometime in January! We rode South Padre Island about a month ago.

    By the way, with the current winter weather up north, there will be a huge influx of frozen Minnesotans, and even colder Canadians coming right after the holidays. Right now they are loading their RV's faster than Santa is loading his sleigh.

    Tom


  7. Just for curiosity how many hours did you have on your generator and how old is it? I didn't know my Onan generator had a belt either. I have an Onan 7.5 KW. Jack

    Jack, Our generator is a 7.5 KW and it had just over 1000 hours on it when we had it serviced this time. Obviously, I wouldn't recommend waiting that long! I would recommend the same thing Brett did with the engine, replace the belt early, keep the usable used belt for a spare.

    We were told this was not an easy roadside repair but I figure it will get us back on the road quicker even if we need to have a mechanic do the install. Mostly they said it required removing the "box" over the generator and then working from under the motor home at the rear end of the generator. Sounds like the kind of place that wouldn't get checked in a routine servicing of the generator unless you pressed the issue. The belt came from NAPA and it didn't cost too much to install when we were having the rest of the work done.


  8. Marci,

    I am sure that many campground owners want their campgrounds to be shady camps much like state and national parks that are managed primarily for the wild conditions. Our winter park was managed for several years by a man who used to say this is an RV park, not a tree park. He was never hesitant to lop off a branch here or a limb there. After being there a while he would just say if a branch is getting in the way, you can cut it off. That is still the policy at that park. We have plenty of trees but everyone can trim the trees on their site to their needs and desires. As a transient, we can't do that unless the owners allow it. I do stop and go to the office when I have trees that are a problem. I've had places find us a different site rather than cutting tree branches. In other places, someone will be sent out to cut off the offending branches. If we all notify the campground management or owners when we have problems with vegetation, perhaps we could keep the trees under control. The only good tree is a trimmed tree!

    Now there is one caveat to the above. I often forget that our full time lifestyle isn't the norm for everyone. Our motor home has ample air conditioning and since it is our house, we don't hesitate to use it any more than you would when you are in your own home. We also have awnings on all our large windows and a power awning that we can use even if it doesn't extend fully. We have sun screens for every window on our motor home. So we are equipped to handle the sun and heat. Not everyone is so well equipped for the heat and sun and for them, trees are an essential part of summer camping. This would have to be a consideration of park owners when it comes to providing shade in their campgrounds.

    Warden,

    I feel your pain! I wish I knew what would remove sap from a surface without damage. I've tried many cleaners and tar removers. The only thing I found to work is simply wait for it to become brittle so it can be broken loose from the surface. My thumb nails take a beating every time I clean the roof! We sat out hurricane Katrina in Maine a few years ago. We were parked under several huge pine trees that shed huge amounts of pine needles as the winds blew. I was finding those needles for years as I cleaned air conditioners and awnings. We replaced the TV dish/dome and sure enough there were the needles under the unit. Love 'em, hate 'em!


  9. We looked at property along the northern Maine coast and would have bought a place to park the motor home during the summer on the spot - but our family is in the midwest and west. We decided they might think we were determined to get away from them permanently if we did that! Still, it is a great place to spend some time in the summer! Enjoy your trip west. We're in Denver right now, highs in the 80's, afternoon showers, lows in the 60's. Safe travels!


  10. Brad,

    Nice account of your voyage! Had to laugh at too much of this. Keep us posted on your travels, no matter how trivial they seem to you. You write well and it is a joy to read your adventures. By the way, I spent the evening sitting on the porch of our new manufactured home in Edinburg, Texas (not Big Bend but further south). It was a beautiful evening, cool breeze if 83 degrees can be cool but after 98 today, it felt great. No bugs to speak of, an all together pleasant evening. You'll have to give Texas a try in the spring or fall. Even winter is milder in south Texas!


  11. Nice piece of writing. I'm looking forward to part 2! For years our family cut trees from the wild. My father always had a friend somewhere who had some cedars we could cut down. Dad never was good at estimating the height of a tree. We would always end up cutting off three or four feet to get the tree into the house! I never had a pine until I married. Getting all dressed up, stomping through the snow and dragging the tree back to the car were a very fun part of the holiday tradition for us. Eventually we ended up building a house on some acreage and I went back to cutting down cedar trees again. I love the smell of a cedar tree at Christmas.


  12. Thanks Bill,

    Yes, deserts can be hot but they can also be cold. There are usually periods of time when they are comfortable. For the southwest US, that time is usually the spring and fall. Like much of that area, there are days in the winter when temperatures are quite comfortable. Sun is usually a given so be prepared with sun screen and bring water. We didn't have our 4 wheel drive Trailblazer when we visited Joshua Tree but there were roads there that were suitable for them. More so in some of the deserts I'll describe in coming installments. Louise's computer died so my work is cut out for me, working on reviving it instead of blogging. The word for two or more of those spiny things is cacti.


  13. Nice article, but I have to say I disliked Joshua Tree and Twenty Nine Palms, would never go there again. Organ Pipes National Monument, now there is a beautiful desert!

    Thanks for your thoughts retiredblade, I'm curious as to what it was that you didn't like about Joshua Tree. We thought there were many things to explore there and enjoyed the hiking and exploring. I'm sure our interests are somewhat different and that affects our impression of one desert or another. We haven't been to Organ Pipes National Monument so I'll put that on our list.

    Tom

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