We have visitors! Yesterday afternoon our dear friends Greg and Jan White arrived at the Elks lodge campground here in Show Low, on their way south to Austin, Texas for the daughter Brandi’s wedding later this month.

We last saw Greg and Jan when we spent two weeks in Las Vegas with them in March, where we had more fun than four old farts should be allowed to. Greg and I agree that it’s probably a good thing that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

While Greg was hooking up their utilities, Jan and Miss Terry went inside our motorhome so Terry could show Jan the new window blinds she installed. We’re not sure how it happened, but when they came back outside, our entry door got locked, and both sets of our keys were inside the RV. (Note to self – get a set of spare keys made and stash them in the Hide-A-Key box with the van key.) 

Since we had the air conditioning on, all of the windows were closed, so I called Coach-Net, our roadside service provider. Coach-Net has bailed us out several times over the years, and I would not start the engine of our motorhome or van without their coverage. Our service package includes free lock out service, so I gave the nice lady at Coach-Net our information, and she dispatched a locksmith, telling me that they would be there in less than an hour.

But as it turned out, we didn’t need them. While I was on the telephone, my daughter Tiffany and her family pulled up, and son-in-law Jim found a window he managed to get open, then he boosted seven year old granddaughter Hailey inside, where she quickly opened the door for us. I was still on the phone with Coach-Net, so I told the lady to cancel the locksmith, and thanked her for her assistance. Then we profusely thanked both Jim and Hailey for their help.

After visiting for a while, Tiffany and Jim left, and by then it was dinnertime. We drove into Pinetop to introduce Greg and Jan to our favorite Mexican restaurant, El Rancho, where the food and service suitably impressed them. We had a great meal, and a good time comparing notes on our travels since we were last together.

The restaurant also has a catering service, and we thought the name was so funny that Terry took a picture of it.

When Miss Terry learned that Greg and Jan were coming to Show Low, it gave her an excuse to make a batch of her delicious cinnamon rolls. No prepackaged mixes for her, my wife is a from scratch cook, and the night before, she made the dough and added pecans, then set them out in a pan in the refrigerator to rise overnight. After we got back to the campground and had time for our dinner to settle, she baked the cinnamon rolls, and the four of us stuffed ourselves all over again. They were wonderful!

After our snack, we sat around visiting for a couple of hours. Here are Greg and Jan, and that’s my iPad he’s checking out. Great T-shirt, Greg! It sure is nice to have our friends here with us for a few days!

Before I leave you, I have to tell you about something funny that Tiffany shared with us. Do a Google search for the words Walmart Bingo and print out a couple of the game cards, then take them with you the next time you go to everybody’s favorite superstore. I wonder how many you can find in one shopping trip. Now, that’s as funny as the photos on the  website peopleofwalmart.com!

Thought For The Day – Ask people why they have deer heads on their walls and they tell you it’s because they’re such beautiful animals. I think my wife is beautiful, but I only have photographs of her on the wall.

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For the last couple of weeks, the television mounted above the dashboard in our Winnebago motorhome had been warning us that it was on its last legs. The picture would go black for a few minutes, and then return, and the duration of the video outages was growing longer and longer.

Since this was the original TV that came with the motorhome when it was built in 2002, we knew it would not last much longer. We decided that we’d just wait until it gave up the ghost, and then replace it with a modern LCD television. Well, I guess that time has come.

Friday, we were watching a movie when the screen blacked out, as it had been doing. But instead of coming back on, as it had been doing, I started hearing a popping noise, and then smelled smoke.

One of the first lessons I learned in Mac McCoy’s fire safety classes was to shut off the source of a fire’s fuel, in this case electricity. I quickly ran outside and unplugged our cord, and back inside, made sure that the inverter was turned off. We determined that there was no actual fire, just components inside the TV getting hot. But I’m sure glad we had not gone away and left the TV on. That could have been very bad.

We took the face plate off the TV cabinet, and then unbolted the mounting bracket that held the old TV in place. After we unhooked the electric and video cables, I carried the old TV outside. Man, that thing sure was heavy! We’ll definitely lighten our load having it gone!

As a temporary measure, we sat a 19 inch Vizio LCD TV that we had inside the cabinet, and it sure looked tiny in there, compared to the huge old original equipment TV that was there! I wish the darned TV would have died while we were in Las Vegas, where we had a zillion places to shop for a new one, and I had Greg White there to help us install it. Hey Greg, want to come see me in Arizona?

When we in Williams, Arizona over the weekend, we made a quick trip to Flagstaff and did some shopping at Sam’s Club and Best Buy. After looking at a lot of different models of TVs, and discovering just how little I know about so much of the new technology, I learned about neat things like HDMI cables, screen refreshment, and pixels. Well, I didn’t really learn. The techno-geeks talked and I just stood there blinking, and occasionally nodded my head like I understood what they were saying.

We eventually bought a 26 inch Samsung LED model. Apparently the LED technology is newer, and supposedly better, then LCD. But what do I know?

Now we have to figure out how to hook it up and mount it, in place of the old TV.

Bad Nick doesn’t even try to get involved in all of that technical stuff, so he just stayed out of the way and wrote a new Bad Nick Blog post titled Dumb A$$ Report #3. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – I walk as much as I can, because you need nothing to walk, you spend nothing, you consume nothing, you emit nothing.

There was only a steady breeze blowing in Las Vegas when we got up yesterday morning, and the high winds forecast the night before were no longer in the picture. So we decided to go ahead and leave the Thousand Trails campground and go on to Kingman, Arizona.

It didn’t take us long to get ready to travel. While I unhooked our water, electric and sewer connections from the campground’s utilities, Miss Terry was busy inside getting things stowed away in our motorhome. Then we ran in our slide rooms, pulled up our stabilizing jacks, and hooked our van to our Blow Ox tow bar.

A quick scan of my PressurePro tire monitoring system showed that both of our inside dual wheels were at 22 pounds. I got out my tire pressure gauge and checked both wheels, and they were right at 100 pounds. Ever since we had our new tires installed at Camping World a month ago, we have had continued false readings on both inside duals. I talked to PressurePro dealer Mike McFall at our rally in Yuma, and he suggested that I remove both sensors, let them set for a few minutes, and then screw them back on, but that has not solved the problem, so I need to call Mike again. I think the problem lies with the type of valve stems Camping World used. I have heard from other RVers who had to switch their valve stems out because of the same problem.

We had a little bit of wind coming out of Las Vegas, and a couple of gusts hit us on U.S. Highway 95 somewhere around Searchlight, but by the time we turned onto State Route 163 for the seventeen mile long, steep downhill trip to Laughlin, the wind had died.

The Winnebago’s exhaust brake handled the downhill run easily, and once we crossed the Colorado River into Arizona, we began another long uphill climb on State Route 68. The big Cummins diesel engine had to work a bit on this one, and we got down to 39 miles per hour for a short stretch, but since it was a nice divided four lane highway, we just got in the right hand lane and chugged right along.

We were going to need fuel before we left Kingman, and the Flying J there has some of the tightest RV fuel islands we’ve ever seen, so I decided to stop at the TA Truck Stop just as we came into town, where access was easier. Big mistake.

Since the cash/debit card price was 28 cents a gallon less then the credit card price, Terry took my debit card inside to have them activate the fuel pump. The clerk told her they would pre-charge us $300, and then correct the amount once I had finished filling our tank. The fuel came to $234.42, and when I went inside to pay, I confirmed with the clerk that this was how much I was being debited. Later that evening I discovered that in addition to the fuel I purchased, TA had also dinged my account for $500, which they were holding as a “security fee.”

I’ve had this happen before, but never for so much money, and I was pissed. I called the truck stop, told them that the charge for the fuel had already cleared my bank account, and I wanted my $500 back. The snotty clerk told me that it would take up to 30 days for them to process the refund. I demanded to talk to his boss, and got some other clown who would not give me his name, but assured me that yes, they would “eventually” return the money to my account. He told me that this was “company policy” to protect me from fraud. Huh? You take $500 of my money and put it in your account, where you draw interest on it for up to a month, to protect me? Such a deal! How much money do places like this make every month on their customers’ money?

I should have just used a credit card instead, since they also charged me the full credit card price anyway. You can bet that I will drive a long way out of my way to avoid TA truck stops in the future.

We arrived at my friend Mike Howard’s home here in Kingman, where we’ll be hanging out for a few days, before we continue on to Show Low, Arizona to visit my daughter and her family. In spite of having five bars of slower National Access service, our internet connection here is beyond terrible, and I don’t even know if I will be able to post my blog. Using our Verizon air card, we get knocked off line every minute or two, if we can even get online. Even my Blackberry Storm is giving me problems receiving and sending e-mail. So please don’t send me any jokes or forwards for a while. I can’t read them, anyway, and they just fill up my inbox.

Bad Nick fought a slow internet connection to post a new Bad Nick Blog titled It’s Time To Take Back Our Border. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.

Yesterday I realized that we were having a déjà vu experience, wondering if we would get out of Las Vegas today or not. Exactly five months ago we were in Indiana at Elkhart Campground with Greg and Jan White, watching the weather and wondering if the high winds there would die down so we could hit the road! Now here we are with Greg and Jan in Las Vegas, wondering if the wind will die down so we can hit the road. History does repeat itself! 

Yesterday the wind blew hard all day, and we were glad we were not out on the highway in a high profile vehicle. Today the wind is supposed to be considerably lighter, and if it is, we’ll pull out about mid-morning and head for Kingman, Arizona.

If we take the direct route, over Hoover Dam, it is 106 miles to our destination in Kingman, Arizona.  RVs can cross the dam unless there is a heightened alert status, but traffic can get very congested going down to the dam and back up. The longer route, through Searchlight to Laughlin, Nevada, and then to Kingman, adds an extra 25 miles to the trip, but usually has much less traffic congestion. We’ll probably choose that route.

But again, it all depends on the weather. If the wind is still blowing hard, we’ll just pay the Thousand Trails preserve for an extra day and wait until tomorrow. One of the great things about living in an RV is that you have your house with you, so it doesn’t matter where you are, because you’re at home. So why press our luck driving in hazardous conditions if we don’t have to?

We have had an absolute blast playing tourist here in Las Vegas with Greg and Jan. It has been like going on vacation from our permanent vacation, and all four of us agree that we have seen things and done more than we would have if we had not all been together. But I have to be honest with you, I miss working. I couldn’t do this on a regular basis.

I have been able to get enough information for several stories for the next issue of the Gypsy Journal, but I usually spend several hours a day at my computer researching and writing. We’ve been so busy for the past two weeks that, except for writing my blogs, I haven’t gotten much work done at all. I’m not complaining, it’s been a lot of fun and we have made some incredible memories. I’m just ready to get back to my regular routine.

The last time we were in Kingman, the service on our Verizon air card was terrible, and from what I understand, things have not improved since then. Mohave County, Arizona seems to be stuck in the dark ages of technology, and nobody told the folks in charge that it’s not 1950 anymore. So if the connection is as problematic as it was last year, there may not be as many photos on the blog for the next few days.

Of course, that all depends on if we actually do get out of Las Vegas today.

Thought For The Day – Forgive your enemies…once.

One thing I really wanted to do before we left Las Vegas was visit Fremont Street for the Fremont Street Experience. Glitter Gulch, historic downtown Las Vegas, was where the gaming industry began, and the old casinos here paved the way for the newer, fancier paces further south on the Strip.

Glitter Gulch got its name both from the glitter of coins dropping into slot machines, and the glitter of the neon signs that light up the night like daytime. The big places on the Strip may have unique architecture and big name acts on stage, but downtown Fremont Street is still classic Las Vegas.   

Never content to sit idly and watch the world pass them by, the folks who operate the old casinos downtown knew that they had to come up with an idea to compete with the new places springing up all over, and the plan they came up with is a winner.

Several blocks of Fremont Street were closed and turned into a pedestrian mall, and a four block long overhead canopy, equipped with a $17 million digital video display system featuring  state-of-the-art LED technology with 12.4 millions bulbs and live action capabilities was installed .

Last night we decided to hit Fremont Street, and I’m really glad we did! To me, it was the best part of our visit to Las Vegas. The crowd was smaller than on the weekend, and we spent a couple of hours just soaking it all in.

There are certain moments that define our lives, and one of them for me was when I came home from overseas. Several of us packed ourselves into a taxi for the ride from the airport to the base, and the car radio was blasting out a song I had never heard before, but came to know well, Don McClean’s American Pie.  The song is the anthem of the Boomer generation that grew up in the 1950s and 60s, and I never hear it without it taking me back to that late night taxicab ride.

So when the canopy above me lit up with a psychedelic display, and the words to American Pie started booming out of the huge speakers along Fremont Street, I was enthralled. I stood there, my head craned upward as images from the past were displayed overhead, tapping my toes and singing along to the music, a huge smile on my face. For a few moments, I was 19 again. I can’t explain it any better to you than to say that you have to experience it for yourself. I didn’t want the song to end.

After the song was over, the lights came back on, and an all girl singing and dancing act came onto a stage to entertain us. They were a hit with the crowd, especially the young guys who all crowded up close to the stage for a better view.

When the band ended their act, we just enjoyed people watching for a while.  For a buck you could pose for a picture with an Elvis character and his pals, or a Las Vegas showgirl. I thought that the girl beat Elvis and Austin Powers hands down.

Later on, the lights dimmed again, and there was an overhead tribute to the Doors. It was good, but I didn’t like it nearly as much as I did American Pie. We could have hung around a while longer for a Queen tribute, but we were getting tired and decided to call it a night.

We are supposed to leave Las Vegas on Wednesday, but a storm system is moving through the area, and strong winds are predicted today and tomorrow, with gusts over 50 miles per hour. If the weather is that bad, we’ll either see if we can extend our stay here at Thousand Trails for a day or two, or find someplace else where we can wait until things clear up.

Thought For The Day – If both of our troubles were hung on a line, you would take yours and I would take mine.