My Life and Travels
Thursday we saw a first, Walmart with covered parking.
Eight rows of covered parking with two rows of cars under each cover and it looks like thirty cars out from the store.
Here a google earth taken April 1, 2015 showing the beginning of the construction.
And here is a YouTube Video.
Saturday we’ll leave for east and Carlsbad Caverns for a week or so. Weather is improving and should be in the low 80’s.
Today was a great travel day, we did laundry in Truth or Consequences.
Richard and Vickie gave us an additional step for our MH. At least a third of the time the last step off the MH has more drop then the our steps.
This additional step is adjustable height and we’ll get a lot of use out of it. In this picture you can see how it fills in the last step.
Thanks Richard and Vickie.
Last night we had our first lightning storm. I got one of my new toys (a lightning trigger) out and tried to take lightning pictures. I didn’t do a very good job.
This is the only picture I got but I think after a couple of hours I have figured out how to use it.
We are in a new campsite today. We were in a reservation only site and someone else had it reserved starting today. The weather report for Carlsbad, NM is not good for the next couple of days so we decided to move to a non-reservable site and stay here until Saturday. In site 52.
Here is our new view.
While Jean was watching TV this afternoon a flash flood and quarter size hail warning came across the TV for the area we would have been driving through. It is not that it might hail quarter size hail it’s a warning not to be where it’s hailing.
Nice day here in New Mexico. Our plan is to stay here for several days until the weather east of here clears. They are having a lot of thunderstorms with some small hail.
The suction cup which holds Martha in place every once in a while comes loose, Martha is our GPS. It has gone for as long as three months and as short of a time as a couple days. I needed to come up for a fix because I’m afraid the power plug in will be break off the back.
Here is my zip tie solution:
I’ll leave the long ends on for a couple of days to ensure I have the correct pressure, tight is good too tight is not always better.
We are now at Elephant Butte State Park with a great view of the lake.
Here is our site for the next couple of days.
This is a Google Earth view.
Verizon
This evening I spent another two hours on txt chats trying to get Jean’s txt account restored. During the first fix Verizon changed Jean’s account from 250 messages a month for $5.00 to $0.20 per txt. I sent two emails to the customer service manager I talked to a couple of weeks ago without any response. Last Monday we stopped at a Verizon store in Sparks where Caesar said he had fixed the problem. I check two days later and the account had not been restored. Verizon has a prefect Customer Service policy, when the representative does not know how to fix the problem they hang up on you. I wasn’t positive that this was the procedure until on one chat I waited 30 minutes and still the rep did not return after I explained the problem, Verizon did an auto log off ( timed out ). I had three chat reps hang up on me, I think the fourth may have restored the plan. Only time will tell, or is it seeing the bill will tell.
Here is an update on our travels:
This is Sunday October 4, 2015.
This trip so far.
Closer view from Boise south.
Current overview of retirement.
Rant:
During the Washington State Legislative session this year they passed a bunch of tax increases and ways of spending money. An example of tax increase is the increase in gas tax, think it is $0.11 a gallon, that is a lot of money. Last year they increased camping fees (remember a fee is not a tax increase). Many parks have nine levels of camping fees based on how popular the site is plus what the site offers for water, electricity and sewer. I think the fees run from $25.00 to top of $45.00. And yes we paid $45.00 for a site last spring. An example of other states for camping is where we are in New Mexico. $14.00 for water and electricity (also most parks have free wifi) with an annual pass it’s $4.00 a night. The out of state annual pass is $220.00 for 13 months. Washington state has fined itself $100,000 day for not fully funding education, however I have not been able to find out how much money they need to fund education and why education would need this specific amount. Another thing the state has done to help create support for all this funding is involved with purchasing a new house. Starting in January of 2015 when you buy a house the new owner will have to certify that they will cheer for all Washington teams. This includes Seahawks, Mariners, Sounders, UW, WSU etc., (well may be not both UW and WSU their is a limit). The legislation does not specify how this will be enforced but I am sure our state’s law enforcement will find a way of monitoring this new law. When I was in the Navy our motto was “NSA Customer Service guarantee, you speak, we listen”.
Rant for the day is over.
It is a beautiful day to be retired in New Mexico.
Last night I went out and took some pictures of the sky before the moon came up. It was still 89 degrees and windy while I was taking these pictures.
Here is our trip so far.
Spent all day in camp watching the world go by. It was warm 100 degrees both inside the MH and outside.
Only saw one group of people heading down the river.
We had a nice sunset.
It was a warm day here today. We got here at 1:30 and the high was 96, going to be 94 tomorrow and then drop into the mid 80’s.
We have one of the two campsites overlooking the Colorado River, site 45.
These sites each have a large steel covered area to out of the noonday sun.
This evening I added a couple of pictures to yesterday’s blog.
We are again at Cathedral Gorge State Park on our way towards The Carlsbad Caverns. Last year we spent 9 days here waiting out the weather while heading south. Significant thunder storms where in this area and we decided this was the safest place to stay. The major north/south road, Highway 15, was washed out just south of here and was closed for several days.
Nice day, 90+ outside and 82 inside.
Late additions:
Campsite from the other side.
In the late evening I went out and took a bunch of plant pictures, here are two.
This morning I got an email from Verizon saying they had made a change to my cell phone plan. I logged onto Verizon and I have my “Unlimited Data” plan. This is good however Jean does not have a txt plan and will pay $0.20 per txt, now that’s a deal for Verizon.
Today’s travel plan is to drive halfway across Nevada on Highway 50 and stay in a rest stop out in the middle of no where. We decided to give a trip to a Verizon Store and see if they can fix Jean’s txt plan. At the Spark’s store Caesar said oh yes I can fix that with no problem. Jean watched he face as he was working through all the computer screens to get the txt plan added “BACK” on our plan. He worked on it for twenty minutes or so, we will see in a couple of days how successful Caesar was.
Rest stop campsite.
At home we don’t have neat clouds so I have to take sunset and cloud pictures when we are traveling.
