Day 3812

 I woke up today and played games for a while.  I'm not well, but I feel a lot better.  I can get out of bed without a major effort.

I shit my diaper a little last night, so I took a shower.  Ellen had filled up the tank so I had to take a short one.  I also shaved and brushed my teeth for the first time in 2 days. 

When I was dressed I went outside and dumped the tanks.  Ellen claims that she can't pull the handles.  Bullshit. 

I went back inside, had breakfast, and did some shopping on Amazon.  I ordered a tire pump.  I also spect'd some shades, but didn't order them. 

The rest of the day was surfing, videos, and napping.  I even had some chicken and rice for dinner.  Surprisingly I kept everything down and there wasn't any stomach upset.

I did miss Sophia's graduation.  I'm not sure I would have survived the trip, much less the ceremony.

Maybe I'll start feeling human tomorrow. 

Day 3811

I woke up this morning with a dirty diaper.  Luckily the bed wasn't damaged.  I felt better, but not by much.  There were a couple of bouts of diarrhea, but I made it to the toilet.  Just like yesterday every time I wiped my ass shit dripped out my ass and onto the floor.  Something else to clean up.

I did take a shower to clean off my ass.  It needed it badly.

Just like yesterday I spent the day mostly in bed eating  nothing and drinking little.  At least the diapers keep me from making any big messes.  

Day 3810

 Overnight I got VERY sick.  Severe vomiting and diarrhea.  The diarrhea was especially bad.  It was leaking out my ass and I couldn't stop.  I must have gotten up four or five times to vomit, shit, or both.  I was exhausted and weak by morning.  I couldn't get out of bed without dragging myself up holding on to things.

Ellen had to take the sheets to the laundromat along with the towels and clothes I'd shit on.  Later on she went back for diapers and bed protectors.  The bed has a couple of indelible stains on it now.

I spent the whole day in bed.  Occasionally I would get up to shit.  I didn't eat anything and drank little.  It was a miserable day.

Day 3809

 I woke up at 6:30 and decided to get up instead of waiting for the 7:00 alarm.  The first thing I did was take a shit.  The result was messy, so I took a quick shower.  Then it was breakfast and hooking up.  We were still on the road a little before 8.

 The trip was 150 miles.  The first half was nice.  There were few cars and I was able to do 65 whenever the road allowed.  A regen started 50 miles after we left.  It wasn't a problem until we reached the summit.  The low EGT's from going downhill caused the regen to shut off 2 or 3 times.  Each time there was a long warmup period before it restarted.  Eventually it did finish with 0% soot.

The last third of the trip wasn't as enjoyable.  There were more cars.  There were podunk towns.  The road was still curvy and going downhill.  I needed to shit again.  I finally had to stop on the side of the road and shit.  Ellen figured out why.  The shrimp taco I had yesterday had lots of red and green peppers in it that I hadn't noticed.  They were really doing a number on my gut.  At least it wasn't as messy as the first one.

We got to the club a little before 11.  Of course it took hours to get set up.  The cover had blown most of the way off the car.  Also some asshole had cut the power cord.  Fortunately the battery wasn't dead, but I didn't want to run it until I'd charged it up.

We got everything but the car done and went to pick up the mail, have lunch, and buy a new power cord.  The last stop was Bauman's for strawberries.

I was tired when we got home so I put off doing things and watched videos instead.  Eventually I went out to the shed and connected up the battery charger.  It said the battery was at 90%.  A little later it read full.  Apparently the cord had been cut recently.  The car will need a bath before we use it though.  It's covered with dust and cobwebs.

I went back inside and watched a few videos.  Then I shredded all of the personal information that the finance and Medicare people had sent us over the last month.  I also opened a letter that said I'd won Senior Vet 3rd in the 20ga in San Antonio.  I get a $30 gift card.

After that it was bedtime. 

Day 3808

 I woke up before 5 to piss.  Ellen's asshole was giving her problems, so she was up and down continuously.  That meant that I couldn't get back to sleep.  I decided to give up and get up.  I had breakfast and then went out to hook up.

Hooking up went fine.  The drive to Baker City was OK except for the tire alarm going off.  I think that the reason was that the temperature was 50.  That was cold enough to drop the pressure below the alarm's threshold.  The tires worked fine the whole trip. 

We spent some time in Baker looking for a tire station that would do 120 PSI.  Maverick, Lowe's, and Shell all didn't have one.  We fueled up and then headed to Redmond.  We left Baker at 6:44.

The trip was great.  There wasn't a lot of people on the road.  That was probably a function of the time and the fuel costs.  I was only passed twice and I only passed people twice.  Best of all - NO TRUCKS.  In spite of being careful to always avoid pushing the trailer in corners I managed to beat the GPS par time by 10 minutes.  That was because I drove 65 whenever the road allowed.

We got to Redmond at noon.  We set up and fed the pets.  I tried to to pump up the lowest trailer tire with the highly recommended pump I'd bought.  It got to 114 PSI before it died.  I'll be getting something else. After that we went to the RC store in town.  

The store was nice.  I had a good talk with him.  He had one of the huge Losi trucks there.  I could have bought it, but I would have no way to get it to Texas.  He didn't really have anything else that I was interested in.  I did find a part for the Slash that I bought.

After that we went back to the trailer.  Grant called and we set dinner at 4.  We had a great time at dinner.  Grant is a cool guy.  We talked about what he was doing, what we were doing, and a little about Hooch.  Grant had to get up at 3 for a flight so we said good bye about 5:30.

When we got home Ellen crashed.  I fed the pets, walked Abby, and started to watch videos which turned into a nap.  When I woke up I did a little surfing and then went to bed.  Tomorrow is get up at 7 and drive to Gervais.

Day 3807

 I woke up at 7:30, played games, and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After breakfast Ellen went to do the wash and I surfed a little.  Then I went out to dump the tanks.

I had to delay part of the tank dumping process so that Steve could mow the lawn.  That meant that I finished about the same time as the wash.  With that done I needed to go to a HW store to get Stabil.  We decided to go to Halfway.

We got the Stabil and dinner at Halfway.  Dinner was frozen lasagna, garlic bread, and rolls along with bagged salad.  I got coffee on the way out of town.  When we got back we stopped at Holcomb to run the dog.  It was a good walk until the very end.  Abby decided to roll in dead fish.  We rinsed her off at the fish cleaning place, but she still reeked.  We took her home and gave her another bath using shampoo.  That's two cold baths in 20 minutes.  In the end she still has a faint odor.

With Abby "clean" we went to Dan's.  We sat and talked for a while and them Patsy drove me to the grange to pick up the maple bars.  There were a huge number.  I paid $40 for all of them.  I left some for the grange people and we took the rest back to Dan's.  When we left some of them stayed with Dan.  I think we ended up with 8.

When we got back I went to the park to put away the Bronco and feed the cats.  When I got back we talked some more and then had dinner.  It was surprisingly good for frozen stuff.  Then important part was Patsy didn't have to work hard.  We left a little after dinner loaded with maple bars and meat.

When we got home Ellen washed the stinky towels from the dog wash incident while I made the bed.  Then I watched videos while Ellen sat on the can.  I also set up a place to eat tomorrow with Grant.

I went to bed a little early because we're getting up at 7:00 tomorrow to drive 250 miles to Redmond. 

Day 3806

 I woke up at 8, played games for a little while, and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  Then I took Abby to the barn on Sullivan Rd to run.

I walked 2.7 miles around the fields.  Abby went several times that amount.  I was proud of her.  She got up a rooster and two hens.  She also flushed a couple of quail, but that wasn't here fault.  They just flew before she could locate them.  She discovered that a good way to cool off was to jump in the irrigation ditches.  Luckily it also cleaned off most of the mud that she acquired. 

When I was done I went home to surf for a while.  I also watched a few videos.  At noon I called Dan to ask if he wanted hot dogs at the ice cream place.  He said yes, so the four of us met there.  The hot dogs were made locally and were very good.  I had a milkshake and Ellen and Patsy had ice cream.  Then we went to Dan's place.

We spent the rest of the afternoon there, talking and surfing.  About 4 we took the dogs to Holcomb.  Abby ran like she hadn't had any exercise at all today.  We walked for about 45 minutes.  Then we went to the trailer to feed the cats and get dog food.

We returned to Dan's for dinner.  It was leftovers, but still really good.  We also met the beef guy and bought some more from him.

We talked until 8 and then went home.  I surfed until bed time. 

Day 3805

 I woke up at 5:30 and couldn't get back to sleep.  I played games for quite a while and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  I pretty much dedicated the morning to getting together an order of the RC stuff for the DeWalt.

Yesterday I'd made up a list of stuff to order from Tower Hobby.  It was about 10 items. I went through the order process, but it wouldn't take my coupon code.  After some confusion I found out that Tower doesn't mark things as out of stock.  They simply wouldn't count them as contributing to the discount requirements.  Screw Tower.

About then it was time to take Ellen to Dan's for church.  When I got back I switched to making up an Amain order that would take advantage of their Memorial Day sale.  Most of the items from Tower could be transferred.  A couple went to Amazon.  I decided to wait on 3 or 4.

As part of the order I was trying to decide between a $100 car from Amazon and one from Amain.  Then Amazon car had a couple of features that the Amain on did not.  The Amain on had the look I wanted.  I ended up even looking at Banggood for the Amain body.  After a lot of looking at part, etc I decided on the Amain car.

Unfortunately the Amain car wasn't eligible for the Memorial day sale because it was already on sale.  I ended up splitting the order.  Some of it went in on the Memorial day sale and the rest went in on a $15 off $150 sale.  I ended up making almost a net 10% off on everything.

I had lunch and took the dog to the park for Frisbee.  She was really happy.  Then I made up a bracket for the sliding door.  That involved cutting up one of the existing brackets, drilling holes, and screwing it to the existing bracket.  The result seems like it will work well.

Ellen called to say church was over, so I went to Dan's.  We talked the whole afternoon.  Patsy fixed BBQ for dinner.  A few of their friend came over also.  The food was great.

After dinner we talked for a while and then went home about 8.  I think that we were party poopers, but I was tired after the early wakeup. 

 

Day 3804

 I woke up at 7:30, played games, and then got up for pet stuff.  Then we went to Halfway.

The first stop was the bank to get some cash.  Then we ate breakfast at the pizza place.  Following that we went to the grocery store and picked up some meat for a BBQ tomorrow.  We also stopped at the two HW stores to look for Dremel attachments.  I found some that might work at the second.  The last stop was the coffee shop. 

I wanted to go to the car show in town.  Ellen wanted to sing with Dan.  We went back to Richland.  I dropped off Ellen at Dan's and went to the yard sale in New Bridge.  The only thing I bought was a maple bar.  I stopped at another sale in Richland and bought a sewer hose support.  Then I went across the street to the ice cream place.

I bought a prickly pear drink and sat outside surfing on my tablet.  I spent a lot of time there deciding on what to buy and talking to people who stopped to see Abby.  Eventually I got hungry and went to the trailer for lunch.  I continued to surf/shop until Ellen called.  Then I went back to Dan's place.

We talked for quite a while.  Mainly Ellen and Dan talked and it listened and surfed.  Patsy came home and asked me to look at her RC.  After getting my chargers from the trailer and doing some debugging I determined that the battery was toast.  Then Ellen and I sat down to find her a cheap replacement.  We ended up with a battery, charger, and battery bag.  I gave Patsy money for the bag. 

Patsy fixed taco salad for dinner.  I helped Dan find the remote he'd misplaced.  We went home a little before 8.  I continued shopping until bed time. 

Day 3803

We woke up at 7:30, played games for a little while, and then got up.  I had breakfast and then went out to hook up.

The hook up went OK.  So did the trip.  It was only 145 miles.  The road has a lot of elevation changes so we only did 10 mpg.

We got to Richland about 11 because we gained an hour on a timezone change.  We unhooked and Ellen fed the animals while I went to put a battery charger on the Bronco.  Then we went to pick up Dan and take him to the Shorthorn for lunch.

We spent the lunch talking.  Most of it was Dan and Ellen talking about people that I didn't know because I'm not on Facebook.  When we got done we went across the street to a yard sale.  I picked up an old screw jack.  We also got prickly pear drinks next door.

There was a lot more talk when we got back to Dan's place.  The subjects were more "catching up", so I got to participate.  Eventually it was time to run the dogs.  I went home and got the Bronco.  I put boat gas in it and a can of sea foam.  Then Dan and I took the dogs to the old barn.  Ellen didn't go.

Abby was amazing.  She ran all over the fields at light speed.  Curt showed up with his dog and all the dogs had a great time running.  Abby never seemed to tire out.  We ended up walking about 4 miles.  I was happy to get the steps in.

When we were done I took the long way home past the parks.  I wanted to get the Bronco completely warm and all of the old fuel out of the fuel lines.  I don't know if it's the gas or the sea foam, but the car sure runs well now. 

I stopped at the trailer and fed the cats on the way back.  Abby had rolled in something stinky and ran through a muddy creek.  We gave her a bath.  Unfortunately it was a cold one.  t least I'd bought her food, so she got dinner.

Patsy fixed pizza for dinner.  We watched Fox with them for a while and then went home.

Amain is having a Memorial day sale.  I spent some time looking at stuff, but I'm going to need to do some more later. 

Day 3802

 I woke up a little before 8, played games, and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  Then I went for a 2 mile walk.  I didn't take Abby because I can walk faster without her.

When I got back we loaded up the truck and went to the club.  It was a great day - sunny with a little wind.  Unfortunately for Abby there were several other squads on the course.  That meant that she couldn't run.  It made her nuts.  We had a great time though.  I'm still trying to adapt to my brain switching eye dominance occasionally.

All the squads were done by the time we were finished.  I let Abby run around half the course as we drove back to the clubhouse.  Then Ellen took her to run in the adjacent field while I put everything away. 

The next stop was Albertson's.  We picked up things that we'd need for Richland like orange juice, cereal, and bananas.  Then we ate lunch at a different burger place.  On the way home I filled up the truck.

When we got home I positioned the truck and put everything away.  Then I sat down for a few videos and a longish nap.  When I woke up it was more videos.  I also tried to install the door guide I'd bought.  I'm going to need some tools that I don't have to do it.

Ellen fixed hamburgers for dinner.  After dinner I bought some parts for the DeWalt on Aliexpress.  We'll get to Oregon before they do. 

 

Day 3801

 I woke up at 7:30, played games, and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  Then I took Abby for a walk.  We didn't get all that far before the AC installers called to say that they would be here in 15 minutes.

It actually took them much longer.  Part of the problem was that they had been given the wrong trailer make.  After a little prep they got right to work.  The install took maybe an hour.  There was a lot of banging on the roof.  The AC has worked great the rest of the day.  In fact we had to turn the thermostats up on both ACs.  I even managed to reinstall the air diverter on the bedroom AC without any problem.

While the install was going on I used the remaining plastic boxes from yesterday to reorganize the drawer under the TV and the junk drawer in the corner.  The transformation was great.  It will be much easier to find and access things.  There's even some spare space in the under-TV drawer now.  The effort was so successful that I even put a small box in the medicine cabinet. 

With the install done we decided to take Abby to the dog park.  We stopped at Home Depot on the way to get guides for the pocket door.  Abby had a great time at the park chasing birds and catching the Frisbee.  I got in the rest of the two mile walk that I'd started this morning.  When we were finished we went to a hamburger place across from Albertson's.  We'd been there before.

When we got home I sat down for a video session which turned into a nap.  I watched a video of a guy trying to make the DeWalt car I bought go 100 mph.  He got it up to 70 before aerodynamics defeated him.  I decided to try it, so I started pricing out parts.  I just love doing that.

The effort took the rest of the afternoon and evening and I'm not done.  A full bullet proof build would cost between $300 and $400.  I'm going to start with the minimum and fix things if they break.  That will be about $225.  I'm spending $100 extra just to get a better motor/esc.  We can afford it.  Intel is back to $118 today.

Day 3800

 I woke up at 5:30 and couldn't go back to sleep.  I played games and finally got up about 7.  I took the clothes to the laundry.  Ellen did the washing while I fed the pets and had breakfast.  Then I took Abby for a 2+ mile walk.

Ellen called me while I was walking to say the shirts were done and some Amazon packages had arrived.  I went back to the trailer, dropped the dog, and then went to pick them both up.  After that I surfed until the wash was finished.

We left the dog and went to Scheel's.  It's a huge store.  It has al sorts of sporting goods and sports oriented clothing.  It also had a huge inventory of Legos.  We looked at everything.  We paid special attention to ebikes and ammo.  We didn't buy ebikes, but we did buy a case of ammo.  We also bought a pellet rifle for Hooch.  He had texted me saying he needed something to kill rats with.

The next stop was a RC store.  They had a whole bunch of stuff, but nothing that I was interested in.  They did have a little Team Associated car that Ellen liked, so she bought it.  After that it was Hobby Town.  Ellen got some paint and a metal stegosaurus.  I bought a stock car with DeWalt colors. 

There was a really nice cafe next to the store.  We had lunch there (ordered breakfast).  It was a huge amount of food.  I ate half and took the rest home. 

We intended to stop at the grocery store on the way home.  Unfortunately Ellen's asshole intervened.  When we got home Ellen cleaned up and we went to the office.  We extended the stay one day and picked up more Amazon packages.  I just verified the packages and then sat down for videos, which rapidly turned into a nap.

When I woke up I tackled the packages.  I put the leveling pads in the trailer.  Then I distributed the plastic trays.  Some went into the desk.  I emptied the junk drawer and redid it with trays.  The result is a huge improvement.  I also charged up Ellen's car for her.  Then it was back to videos. 

I stopped videos to eat dinner.  The leftovers were really more than I should have eaten.  I didn't feel good when I was done.  After eating I had to drive 5 miles to Albertson's to get milk.  When I got back I unboxed the car I bought.  It's pretty cool, but I'm already planning upgrades.

That was it for the day.  After a little more surfing I went to bed.

The AC guy called us when we were out.  They plan on doing the install tomorrow. 

 

 

Day 3799

I woke up at 6:30, played games, and got up when the alarm went off at 7.  Then it was breakfast and out to hook up.  We were on the road at 7:55.

The trip was much like yesterday's.  It was long and mainly boring.  The beginning was another climb in altitude accompanied by a head wind and low fuel mileage.  An asshole trucker who kept passing me on downhills and getting passed on up hills entertained me for 20 - 30 miles.  After that it was just boring.  

We had to stop for fuel because of the headwind.  Even with that we made it to the park a little before 1.  After setting up I fed the pets and then we made an Amazon order for food and leveling blocks.  The ones we have are getting broken up.  Ellen had called an A/C vendor while we were on the road.  They called back and said they could install and AC on Wednesday.  YEAH.  It's going to cost $2,400, but who cares?

After that we went to the hardware store across the street.  I bought a DeWalt battery to replace the one that died.  It was $100 off.

When we got back I sat down for videos.  It ended up being a nap.  I woke up for a few more videos.  Ellen fixed stir fry for dinner and then we fed the pets a late dinner. 

After dinner I took Abby for a 2+ mile walk.  There's along path outside the park that she can run free on.  It ends at a school where she can run on the grass.  She's tired tonight. 

When I got back I did a lot of Aliexpress shipping, but didn't buy anything. 

Day 3798

 We woke up at 7.  I got up, ate breakfast, and we started to hook up.  Everything went normally and we were on the road by 7:50.

The first 40 miles were brutal.  It's a long climb out of Grant's Pass and there was a really strong headwind.  We got 6.7 mpg.  After that the climb lessened and the wind died down.  Eventually we were averaging 10.5.  That went down when we did a regen.

We fueled up about 40 miles south of Provo.  We might have been able to make it all the way, but it would have been really close.

The whole drive was just long and boring.  I like boring drives.  Of course there had to be a short meeting with an asshole trucker.  He passed me going less than 1 mph.  Shortly after he couldn't hold speed on a hill and I passed him.  The road climbed for a while and I never saw him again.

Traffic through SLC wasn't bad.  There were quite a few cars, but there was also a lot of traffic lanes.  We got to the park a little after two.  That's an average of almost 62 mph.  That's not bad considering we made a stop.

 When we got to the park it was 52 degrees and windy.  We're not used to that.  We unhooked and went to fuel up.  When we got back I sat down in the chair and watched videos for the rest of the day.

Ellen fixed hamburgers for dinner.  We had leftover french fries to go with them. 

We've got 300 miles tomorrow.  I'm going to have Ellen call around Boise to see if someone has an A/C. 

Day 3797

 I woke up at 7:45, played games, and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After that I took a two mile walk with Abby.  Then we left Abby at the trailer and went to ACE.

We bought a case of practice ammo and some caramel corn.  I also got a couple of plastic trays to put in the desk cubby holes.  Then we went across the street to a grocery store.  It was upscale from Wally World.  We bought a whole lot of food because it will be a while before we have a chance to shop again.  The last stop was for fuel - $5.86.

When we got home I connected up the sewer hose.  I planned to dump the tanks after dinner.  Then I staged a videos/nap session.  Eventually I got bored and started to mod the scx30.

I started at the front.  I needed to replace the axles, diff gears, steering links, and the suspension links.  That basically required completely disassembling the front end.  It took hours.  The tiny screws used are really hard to manipulate.  Again I had to use the special tools I'd purchased.  I had to break to dump the tanks and have dinner, but I did get it all accomplished.  Then I put everything away. 

That pretty much took up all of the evening.  We took a short walk with Abby.  The weather is changing.  The wind is blowing and the temp is down to 79.  Wonderful.  It's cooling off just as we leave.

Tomorrow's leg is 373 miles - the longest one of the trip.  Hopefully doing it on Sunday will make getting through Salt Lake easier.

Day 3796

 I didn't get to sleep until 2:00 and woke up at 5:30.  I don't know why I couldn't sleep.  I played games for a long time and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After that lit was load up the truck and go to Purgatory.

We both shot fairly well.  I'm beginning to adapt to having the left lens somewhat diffuse.  They were really good targets left over from a tournament.  Unfortunately there wasn't any water on the course and it was 90+.  When we were finished I drove to the Hobby Town.

I bought some additional colors of the great paint we bought earlier.  Then I carefully went through the parts they have left.  I bought a few items, but nothing expensive.  The final stop was the hamburger place down the street.  I made the mistake of ordering a "combo" with a milkshake.  The milkshake was huge.  The drug made me pay for it later. 

From there we went home.  I sat down to watch videos and went to sleep.  When I woke up I felt lousy so I laid down on the bed.  I'm still depressed that we could have had the AC repaired.  Eventually I got up to feed the animals.  I felt a little better so it was back to the videos.  I didn't feel good enough to work on the scx30.

Dinner was a sandwich.  After dinner was more videos.

One AC doesn't really cool the trailer than the temp is in the high 90's. 

Day 3795

 I woke up about 7:30, played games, and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After that I took Abby for a two mile walk around the park.

There were 8 school busses at the registration,  They were all unloading rug rats.  Soon the whole water park was filled with them. 

When I got back to the trailer I did a little surfing.  Then the mobile repair guy called.  He was there shortly afterwards.  It didn't take him long to determine that the AC was history.  He said he couldn't get a replacement until next week.  Crap.

After we left we did some video watching and had lunch.  Ellen called around, but couldn't find an AC.  We decided to go look at the rug rats.  I didn't take my phone.  That was a big mistake.  When we got back there was a message from the repair guy.  He'd found someone who would ship an AC tomorrow.  He needed an OK by 3.  I didn't get the message until 3:30. CRAP, CRAP, CRAP.

I went back to watching videos and a nap.  The Amazon package came, so I went to pick it up.  It was three upgrades for the scx30.  When I got back I decided to work on them.  The first was the shocks.  I put the oil in and assembled the mounts.  That required stretching 2 very little rubber rings on each mount.  Luckily I had the tools for the 1/32 car with me.  I wouldn't have been able to do it without them.

The second upgrade was the links That required 32 more little rubber rings.  The last was the skid.  I looked over the car and realized that I'll have to take the whole car apart to install the skid.  I decided that would be another day.  I fed the animals and went back to videos.

Ellen fixed eggs and sausage for dinner.  After dinner it was a little surfing and then videos. 

Day 3794

 I woke up at 8.  That's the first time I've slept for 8 hours at night and a while.  Then I played games before getting up for pet stuff and breakfast.  It was cooler this morning (85) and I was tired from two travel days.  We we decided to make it a doggy day.

We took Abby to a park we've been at before.  There were 6 or so dogs there.  They all wanted to chase Abby.  She was happy to oblige.  She tired them all out, but it took a fairly long time.  I walked my two miles going around and around the dog park.  Eventually all of the dogs left and so did me.

From there we took Abby to a dog wash.  It wasn't a really good one, but it got the job done.  We stopped at a shaved ice place on the way.  It's the first one I've ever seen in a brick and mortar building.  The shaved ice was really good, especially since by then the temp was in the high 90's. 

 We took a long way home between St. George and Hurricane.  Everywhere we went there was massive amounts of new houses being built.  It's just amazing.

Last night the bedroom AC crapped out.  It was blowing warm air in the morning and also through the time we were gone.  We called a repair guy who will come out tomorrow.  I tried the AC just before bed time and it seemed to be blowing cold again.  Of course the outside temp is 15 degrees less now.

The accountant got back to us about selling stock.  He said we could sell $150,000 without going above the limit.  We called Grant and he's going to do the trade. 

It was getting hot, so we hid out in the trailer.  I did a lot of online shopping for RC stuff, but didn't find anything to order.

Ellen fixed chicken mixed with the leftovers from the Italian place.  It was really good.

After dinner it was videos. 

Day 3793

 I woke up at 5:30 and couldn't go back to sleep.  I played games until the alarm went off at 7.  Then it was up for breakfast, hooking up, and getting on the road.  We left the park about 8.

The drive up included a traffic slowdown in Las Vegas.  We never really stopped, but we had 4 or 5 miles of under 20 mph travel.  That was the only glitch, at least until we got to the park.  We got there a little before noon.  They wouldn't let us check in until 1.  There was no point in it.  The park wasn't more than15% full.

We went to wait in the Walmart parking lot.  That wasn't all bad.  I got a chance to buy some more bananas and some DEF.  I also walked across the parking lot to  Jersey Mikes for some sandwiches.  Ellen stayed in the truck with the animals.  We were back at the park at exactly 1:00.

After unhooking and feeding the animals we left for CVS.  We got there just at 2 when they reopened.  They got my drugs transferred, and the prescriptions filled in less than half an hour.  That included the Mounjaro.  I was a happy man. 

From there were went to the Hobby Town.  They look like they are going out of business.  They have only a small collection of parts left.  The parts are all reduced 35 and 45 percent.  I bought a few things.  I might be back to buy some more.

We also went to the place in the guy's house.  It has an amazing amount of stuff.  Unfortunately I couldn't find anything that I wanted to buy. 

On the way home we stopped at Culver's.  I had a "concrete" and Ellen had a drink.  We also got a couple of pints of ice cream.  They were half price. 

When we got back to the park Ellen went to do the wash.  I ordered some SCX30 stuff from Amazon.  It's supposed to be here tomorrow.  Then I did some surfing until the wash was done.  When I picked up the wash we went to the Italian restaurant at the park.  It was really good, but somewhat expensive.  

After dinner we made the bed and put the washing away.  Then I took Abby for a short walk while Ellen sat on the can.  When I got back I spent the rest of the evening watching videos.

 

Day 3792

 We woke up at 7.  I had breakfast and then went outside to hook up.  That process went well and we were on the road before 8.

This was the best Tucson to Boulder (or similar) trip that we've ever had.  We had a tailwind for the first half of the trip and got 13 mpg.  We got 11.3 for the whole trip.  The trip up to Phoenix was smooth sailing.  We did run into traffic once I10 turned west, but it wasn't too bad.  303 had more traffic than I'd seen before, but again it wasn't too bad.

Of course as soon as we got on 60 things got a little painful.  There was a box truck that kept passing me and slowing down.  I'd pass him and he'd speed up to pass me again.  At one point he sped up so he could box me in behind a semi.  I managed to get in front of him and cut him off in the process.  I got back in the right lane and he pulled up next to me.  I flopped him off and drove his speed (70) until we got to Wickenburg.  He turned off there.

Wickenburg is a real pain in the ass and always will be.  It has 7 traffic circles on the highway.  Once we were back them everything became a lot more pleasant.  A lot of the road was resurfaced and there were no traffic problems.  The construction on I10 in Kingman is ongoing.  The road down the hill to the turnoff is a war zone.

The road to the dam is a crappy section, followed by and OK section, followed by a less crappy section.  There wasn't much traffic, so I drove down the middle of the road in the crappy section.  We made good time over all and were in Boulder before 2.

It was 104 in Boulder.  This is becoming a standard.  We set up with no problems.  Then I went to the hardware store for a couple of small items.  After that we stopped for a root beer float at A&W followed by filling up the truck.  Then it was back to the trailer to hide out from the heat.

Ellen fixed chicken and noodles for dinner.

I spent the afternoon and evening on videos and surfing.

Intel keeps going up.  Our stock is now worth $4.5.  Ellen looked into taxes if we sell some.  We can only sell about $50K before we're in the next tax bracket. 

Day 3791

  I woke up about 6:30 and couldn't go back to sleep.  Our spot is 100 yards from I10 with a busy rail line on the other side of the freeway.  The noise never stops.  I played games and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  We wanted to go see the ostriches before it got hot, so we left for there as soon as we finished eating.  The temperature was already in the mid 80's.

We had a great time at the ostrich ranch.  We fed all of the animals and bought extra food for the birds and the stingrays.  The ostriches were just as aggressive at snatching food as ever.  It was just as much fun as I  had hoped it would be.

 After we left we went to fill up the truck.  Fuel was $6.19/gal.  Fortunately we needed less than 4 gallons.  We also walked through the tourist trinket areas.  The only things we bought were a couple of 32 oz drinks.  We were really thirsty.  Then we went home.  I lined up the truck pretty carefully.  I don't want any hassles hooking up tomorrow.

We spent the afternoon and evening hiding out from the heat just like yesterday.  It got up to 104 again today.  The AC is keeping us comfortable, but the refrigerator is barely keeping up.

I took Abby for a walk to the garbage in mid afternoon.  It was about 2 blocks there and back.  I walked on the side of the road so she could walk on the cooler dirt rather than the black pavement.  She insisted on walking on the pavement.

I've been mildly worried about tomorrow's drive.  It will be the most work of the entire trip.  There's no helping it.  It has to be done. 

Day 3790

 I woke up about 7:30 and got up.  I expected the water to be off, but it wasn't.  I decided to go out and dump the tanks before I had breakfast.

As near as I can tell, the water never went off.  Dumping the tanks went as usual.  When I was finished I went back inside and had breakfast.  After that I killed time surfing.  We only had 54 miles to go, so I didn't start hooking up until 10:45.  That went really smoothly.

So did the trip up.  All of the construction on I10 through the north of Tucson is complete.  It's 4 lanes of really good pavement.  The traffic was light.  We got to the park a little after noon.

The only pain in the ass for the day was unhooking.  The spot was slanted side to side.  We tried to compensate, but when we unhooked the trailer wouldn't level.  We hooked up again and tried more leveling blocks.  Again the trailer wouldn't level.  We gave up because we were out of blocks.  Things seem to be OK.

The temperature kept getting hotter and hotter through the afternoon.  It eventually reached 104 degrees.  Needless to say we just hid out in the trailer.  The whole afternoon and evening was a mixture of surfing and videos.  

We went to bed at the usual time. 

Day 3789

 I woke up at 7:45, played games, and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After that we loaded up the truck and went to the club.

It was a little hotter than a couple of days ago, but still comfortable.  We shot some FITASC targets first, only the singles and a few report pairs.  I did OK, but I still need to close the left eye occasionally.  Then we went over and shot the white course.  About halfway through Ellen said she did't want to shoot anymore.

I shot the rest of white and a little of blue.  Between the sun and the shooting my gun got really hot  I put it away before the barrels came apart.  I shot a few stations with Ellen's gun.  It was really awkward, but I did OK.  We quit at 200 rounds and they refunded the other 50.

The cafe was closed so we just went back into town.  We stopped at a grocery store for milk, bananas, OJ, and a couple of other things.  We'll be away from civilization for a couple of days.  We also stopped at Rudy's to get the last BBQ we'll have for months.  We got 2 lbs of brisket, 1 lb of turkey, and half a sausage.  The last stop was to fill up the truck.

When we got back it was videos and a nap.  I woke up in time to feed the animals.  Then we went over to the restaurant for dinner. 

After dinner it was a few videos and then I watched a movie.  It was a movie I'd seen before, but it was fun.

The water is supposed to be off from 7 to 9 in the morning tomorrow.  I hope they keep to the schedule.  I haven't dumped the tanks yet because we only have 56 miles to go tomorrow.

Intel went up a whole lot today.  The total now is almost $4.4M. 

Day 3788

 I woke up at 8, played games, and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  I didn't have anything important scheduled, but I decided to accomplish some small tasks.

Devon had pissed on the bathroom rug last night.  Ellen went over to get it washed.  I took Abby and we went to the laundromat a little later.  Then we all three went to the dog park while the rug was washing.  There was a puppy there and it wanted to chase Abby.  She was fine with the.  There were a lot of birds there, too.  Abby was playing chase with the dog and chasing birds at the same time.  She got in a pretty good run.  She even got in some Frisbee too.

When the wash was done we went home.  I picked up a package from Amazon on the way.  I opened it up and put everything away.  That was the first of three deliveries today.  Each time I would get the delivery, unpack it, and put it away.

I also installed the bungee cord I bought in Tombstone in the pantry.  Now the large bottles are secured against the wall rather than bouncing all over when we move.  Then I painted the hands of the figure I'd purchased as a RC driver.  I'm going to leave the face for Ellen because it's pretty tricky.

That was pretty much all I accomplished for the day.  The rest of the day was videos and surfing.  Ellen got in a chick flick when I was surfing.

Ellen fixed pork chops for dinner along with the leftover sides we brought back from last night's dinner.

After dinner I put in two miles walking around the park.  After that it was surfing until bedtime. 

Day 3787

 I woke up at 7:45, played games, and then up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After that I did a little surfing.

I went out to the truck and got out case that had practice ammo in it.  The I loaded up the truck and we went to the club.  It was a nice day, upper 70's with a slight wind.  Because everything is screwed up by the I10 work I drove all the way there on Benson Hwy and Ajo Hwy.

I ran the first station which wasn't an easy one.  Then the next two stations were just like San Antonio.  I'd miss shots that looked perfect to me.  Then a light bulb came on.  I closed my left eye.  I immediately started shooting like I should.  Of course I did miss shots from the left that I should have hit.  I'm going to start messing up the left lens in my reading glasses to try to get my brain back to right eye dominant.

We had lunch at the club and then drove back.  We stopped and got some money at Wells Cargo.  When we got home we put everything away.  Then we went to a RC store w/o the dog.  They didn't have any RC things that I wanted, but we did get some paint for the figure I ordered from Amazon.  Then we went home.

We both got on Amazon to make another order.  We got water filters, a vacuum for the truck (the other broke) and a lot of groceries.  They should all be here tomorrow.  We got today's order.  I think the figure will look good after it's repainted.

I didn't feel like doing anything else, so I started watching videos.  There may have been some dozing done also. 

We went to dinner at the restaurant.  We both had salmon.  It was really good.   When we got back it was more videos for the rest of the evening.

I checked the stock price while we were at dinner.  It's up to a little less than $4M.  The price dropped in after hours, so I expect tomorrow will be a down day.  I don't have any complaints though.

I don't plan on doing much tomorrow.  I'll rest and then we'll shoot again on Friday and I'll drop the tanks.

Day 3786

 I woke up at 7:30, played games, and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After that it was surfing.  We only had 64 miles to go today and checkin time was 1:00.

About 10:30 we started to hook up.  Everything went smoothly except connecting the trailer.  For some reason I'm having trouble with doing it this year.  My first attempt failed because the hitch didn't fully latch.  Fortunately I could pull the release and drive forward.  I changed the height of the trailer and connected the second time.

We got on the road a little after 11.  The trip was uneventful until the last 3 miles.  They are totally rebuilding the stretch of I10 that parallels the park.  The exits we use don't exist.  We had to drive further towards town and the double back.  We had to drive farther east than necessary because some of the cross streets were blocked.  Eventually we got to the park.  Event the road leading to the park is messed up by construction.

Everything went pretty well after that.  We unhooked.  Then I fed the animals while Ellen got the wash ready.  I drove everything over to the laundromat.  I ordered a gun case and a tire inflater from Amazon.  The one I have won't inflate to 120 psi.

That was the end of anything useful today.  I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening on-line shopping, watching videos, and napping.

I found a RC store in town.  I'm sure that we'll get there.  I think that we'll probably go shoot tomorrow. 

Day 3785

 I'm not sure when I got up because the bedroom clock had the wrong time zone.  It was very early though.  I played games for a long time and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  We didn't have anything scheduled today.  I did want to go to Tombstone for lunch.

We took Abby to the back of the park and let her off lead.  She ran around the  whole back area.  We stopped when she started sniffing the ground rather than running.  After that we ended up surfing and watching videos for the whole morning.  We figured that the stores wouldn't be open until 11.  We got going about noon.  The first stop was the hardware store.  I wanted to get a bungee cord to secure the bottles in the pantry.  Then we went to the cemetery.

 Ellen wanted to see Val Kilmer's fake grave.  Apparently his costar in Tombstone bought it for him.  It's actually a nice headstone.  People have left flowers and mementos.  The best ones are cartridges. 

From there we started walking the town.  Most stores were open and there weren't a whole lot of people.  We ended up eating lunch at a place that had a second floor balcony overlooking the street.  It was great.  The weather was just the right temperature and there was a slight breeze.  The food was good and I had a great prickly pear margarita.

We ended up buying a few things.  Ellen got a money clip.  I got a t-shirt and a key chain with a spinner.  We also got 4 bottles of different pop - root beer and prickly pear.  After walking the whole street we went home. 

I sat down for videos and quickly went to sleep.  I didn't wake up until 5.  Like I said, I got up early this morning.

Dinner was leftovers from lunch.  After dinner was videos until I got bored.  I ran across a video with suggestions on how to improve my scale spreadsheet.  I made them.

I did a little more surfing and then went to bed.  Tomorrow's drive is under 100 miles, so there won't be any hurry. 

I forgot that yesterday I ran across the price of Intel stock.  It's $99/share.  That means that our holdings have increased by almost $3M in the last 12 months.  Wow.  Of course today it dropped by $4, but that's still a huge amount of money.  There's no more worrying about fuel prices.

Day 3784

 I woke up about 8, played games, and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After that we decided to go to Sierra Vista for a Doggy day.

There's a road that goes directly from Tombstone to Sierra Vista.  It's about 20 miles long and goes over a range of hills.  It was a nice drive.  Our first stop was the dog park.  It was inside a much larger park.  The dog park was still pretty large.  Ellen sat in the dog park while I walked around the larger park.  I walked a little over 2 miles while Abby ran all over the dog park with some other dogs.

Abby had rolled in the dirt yesterday and rolled in more dirt today so the next stop was the Tractor Supply dog wash.  She came out much whiter and cleaner smelling.  After that we went to Wally World for a few groceries and ass wipe.  The last stop was Culver's so Ellen could have lunch.

The truck went into regen on the way home.  It was still doing it when we got back to Tombstone so I just started back on the road to Benson.  About halfway there I turned around.  The truck finished its regen about a mile from the RV park.

I had lunch and then did a little surfing.  I switched to videos and that turned into a very long nap.  When I woke up I watched videos until dinner.

Ellen fixed ham and eggs for dinner.  After dinner I went back to videos until I got bored and did a little more surfing until bed time. 

Day 3783

 I woke up at 7 and played games until 7:30.  Then it was up for breakfast.  After that we started to get ready to leave.  Everything went smoothly until I tried to hook up.  The hitch wasn't perfectly aligned and I hadn't raised the trailer enough.  These combined to getting the hitch hung up on the guard.  It was only half closed and wouldn't close the rest of the way.

I tried backing up, going forward, raising the hitch, and lowering it nothing worked.  I finally managed to raise one side of the trailer enough to pull the hitch open.  That allowed me to unhitch.  From there I managed to hook up fairly easily.  It took a long time to do this, but we were still on the road before 9.

The drive to Tombstone was uneventful.  One great thing was that once we got to I10 we had a tail wind all of the way.  We ended up doing 12.1 mpg for the whole trip.  That was offset a little by paying $5.89 for 10 gallons near the Arizona border.  I probably didn't need the fuel, but I wanted to buy peace of mind.

Thanks to gaining an hour we made it to Tombstone before 2.  Ellen has us at a park a mile outside of Tombstone.  It's OK, but I'm disappointed that we aren't staying where we did before.  As soon as we were done setting up we went into town.  The tourist part hasn't changed much, but there's a lot more development in the rest of the town.  There are new hotels, RV parks, and restaurants.

I got my two miles in walking the town.  The only thing we bought was a t-shirt at a Trump store for John.  Eventually we made it back to the park.  I took Abby on a walk around the park while Ellen sat on the can.

After leftovers for dinner I watched videos, had a nap, and watched more videos.  Eventually I got bored and surfed for the rest of the evening. 

Day 3782

 I woke up at 5 and couldn't go back to sleep.  I tried for half an hour and then started playing games.  Eventually I got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  It rained hard for a lot of the night and was still raining when I got up.  It was also 50 degrees.  We weren't going anywhere.

I spent the whole morning in the trailer.  Most of the time I was shopping on Aliexpress.  They are having a beginning of May sale and there's lots of stuff I'm interested in on sale.  About 11 the rain stopped.  Abby was going crazy so I took her for a walk down the dead end street in front of the park.  We went the standard 2 miles.

When the walk was done we left to do errands.  We stopped at Albertson's because Ellen has started eating cereal which made the milk supply low.  Then we stopped an old drive in and had lunch.  There was a Dutch Bros a block down the road so we stopped for coffee and a pup cup.  The lady gave me the coffee for free.  We fueled up on the way home.

The rain had stopped, but it was still cold and windy.  I was really getting into shopping so I went back to it.  I ended up ordering a variety of stuff including scx30 stuff, scales for my weigh in project, and some more small receivers.  The whole thing cost a little over $50 and included a lot of discounts.

Elle fixed chicken and rice for dinner.  After dinner I finished up the order and then did some surfing.  That got old and I switched for videos.  I started to fall asleep so I decided to go to bed early.  Maybe I can make up for the early wake up.  Tomorrow is a 350 mile day, so we're getting up at 7:30.