TEES

Each year Amazon gives it’s workers that complete the CHRISTmas Rush Season, lots of little perks. One that we enjoy in particular is the tee shirts.

Ours arrived in the mail yesterday. Here is a look:

Large back graphic.

Front graphic on left side.

Our 2009 shirt said, “I SURVIVED”, Coffeyville 2009 CHRISTmas Season ! I wonder what the 2011 shirt will look like ?

Though not an expensive item, they are quite an conversation opener at RV gatherings.

Amazon’s facilities are so large that it is impossible to meet every one of our coworker’s and we are always seeing a tee shirt somewhere, and spending time with the wearer, visiting about our experience there, or answering questions from curious RVer’s about how to go to work there and so on and so forth.

This years tee shirt is a quality “tagless” shirt by Hanes and we look forward to wearing them for years as we travel around America’s Heartland.

We noted that each envelope that we received was addressed in the most beautiful hand writing. A labor intensive personal touch that we greatly appreciated. Yes, it was just like receiving a letter from home.

Our hats are off, to our great coworkers at Campbellsville, that make our time there so special.

NEON

Betty and I have always enjoyed driving any part of old Historic Route 66 that we get near during our travels.

The architecture and signage are quite unique and are truly Americana at it’s finest. 

However, it is the neon that always thrills us the most, and apparently we aren’t the only ones. Here is a link to a search on You Tube for “Route 66 Neon”.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=route+66+neon&aq=f

We have been known to set our clocks so that we can get up early when there is less traffic about, allowing us to roll slowly by those cool neon signs, taking it all in.

Neon signs are expensive and are hard to keep up, yet the business owners know how powerful their attraction is and think they are well worth it. We think so too and patronize those places at every opportunity.

This short video is one of our favorites. It is the theme music from Route 66, the TV show, with many of the animated signs.

Neon Highway Animated Signs

If you have a few minutes, click on the link above and enjoy the stroll down memory lane.

EXIT

Sam Walton knew what the work a day world needed and he supplied those day to day needs at the lowest price.

Now a days however, with Sam gone, the decisions made in the Bentonville board room, seem to have ran amuck.

As we travel around the heartland of America we find our selves having to look in other places to find the basic needs that our simple life style demands.

Now, we don’t need exotic things or even desire them. So why is it that the things that made the wal mart fortune, are no longer available ? Is it that Sam isn’t at the helm demanding a common sense evaluation of products and cost ?

One simple example is a RV sewer cap like this one:

A simple plastic cap that every RVer in America conceivably uses more than one of each year.

Our local supercenter’s RV section has dwindled down to a small four foot wide area of shelves in the automotive department. It has no sewer cap in it and no matter how many times I ask, or who I talk to, apparently, will never have one.

As I recall, the last one I bought there cost in the neighborhood of $2.28. To find a replacement cap I had to travel out of our County and pay well over $4.50.

Some flashy boardroom executive decision to discontinue a basic needs item has cost us both.

Is it just us, or have others experienced the same kind of wal mart things ?

You would think that with so many RVer’s in and out of wal mart in a day’s time they would be aware of such simple things. I’ll bet that RVer’s aren’t the only large group of American’s that are  seemingly ignored by wal mart’s decision makers.

TRAINING

Change of plans ! This was to be the fourth year to go to Trujillo Meadows campground, and the third to manage it.

But, this year, however, we will be down in the Conejos River canyon at the Aspen Glade campground, managing it as we train to be the area manager for the following year. Here is a Google Earth look at Aspen Glade:

The straight line in the upper left corner is highway 17. The broad curved line at the bottom is the Conejos River of Trout fishing fame.

Our current area manager operates from the Aspen Glade campground, and will be training us, since he will retire after this Summer.

There are eight campgrounds in the area that range in elevation from 8400 feet to 10,000 feet. The nearest town to our campsite will be Antonito Colorado.

Here is a link to the company’s district page with a description.

http://www.americanll.com/Rio%20Grande.html

CRASH

Gathering up the scraps and bits of debris, all that remained after the fatal crash of our faithful and well traveled laptop, we withdrew to the office slide.

Digging through our battered old computer bag, we retrieved a jump drive, and as I pulled off the protective cap, a few grains of sand fell out, reminding me that the old Acer had logged a couple of hundred miles of raw beach driving on Padre Island Texas.

Pouring a cup of black coffee into an antique Army cup, complete with graphics, I wondered if the flashy new Toshiba would have survived thousands of miles in a Jeep.

Hooking up the Verizon 3G device, a USB 1000, and a USB hub with cool blinking colored lights, I added a wireless mouse to speed things up. It wasn’t enough.

The service pack 1 for Win 7 was 88 mb just by it’s self ! Man did them USB hub lights go to blinkin’ !

A pot of coffee, lunch and a nap later, and I’m about half way done !

SEQUENCE

A cool board game with local variations and “house rules” that can vary from home to home, or, RV park to RV park. Here is a look at the board. This  nifty roll up board was made by a friend, see the initials on the back by the rules.

Lots of people around the table guaaaroooanteees high chatter and excitement rates !

Here is a look at the simplified rules.

Click on photo for large view.

We will be at Lake Greeson for a couple of weeks of jug fishing next month, and we are looking forward to evenings filled with laughter around the sequence table.

PROGRESS

Our RV shed hosted several different types of campers over the years. However when we purchased our 36’ long 2010 Coleman fifth wheel, with three slides, it wasn’t long, high or wide enough to accommodate it.

Since we are establishing a docking port for our RV, the old shed had to go. Today the old shed was moved to it’s new home by it’s new owner.

Here is the empty RV pad with nothing left there but the cement blocks.

Please disregard the photo date, the date wasn’t reset after adding new camera battery’s.

We are shopping for the replacement RV shed, to be installed at the docking port site after completion of the dirt work. The new shed will measure approximately 41 feet long by 20 feet wide, and be fourteen feet tall, with an extra sheet of metal on each side.

BOOKS

There are times when we hurry up to get somewhere, only to find out that we have to wait. It doesn’t matter if it’s at the Doctor’s office or simply waiting for a friend to arrive for lunch, busy productive folks don’t like the “down time”.

So, you pull out your cell phone, check messages and email, maybe return a call or two. You might even surf the web a bit, but all to soon you are back into that down time, twiddling your thumbs place  again, all too soon.

Pull out your Kindle, you say ? Sure, a good solution, however a kindle is just too big for most pockets, or even many purses, for that matter.

Enter the smart phone. I have downloaded Kindle’s free software onto our PC and my cell phone. This means being to be able to have a good book on hand at a moments notice.  It is so cool to flip through pages of an old classic like Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island”, that was downloaded for free, while waiting for the dental tech to say, “we are ready for you now”.

Here is a look at our set up:

Click on the photo for a larger view. You might note that the android main operating system on the cell phone is giving a slightly different view than the windows Main Operating System on the laptop.

He, he, the larger view will also show that the computer screen needs cleaning and smears on the phone screen from tapping and dragging. Tech stuff, ain’t it cool !

COW

The day we picked up the boat in Hot Springs, we had lunch at the Purple Cow Restaurant. A 50’s style malt shop and burger joint.

The place is wired with a Bose Sound System, oldies only,  has old shows on the various large screens that are mounted up high on the walls and is just a pretty cool place to grab one great burger and a purple shake !

Neon clock.

Menu cover.

Lots of cool neon in here !

That good “old style” burger taste is right out of the 50’s ! Note the mayonnaise is in the small cup on the side so you can season to taste.

If ya’ ever get a chance, ya’ gotta’ try one of them primo purple shakes ! You’ll be hooked ! Guaranteed !