RV

Yes, the 1st Earth Day was 50 years ago

/ Roadtirementvintage / 8 Comments

Big 4 Mountain, Cascade Range

Wow, April 22, 1970. Where were you on the first Earth Day? I was a freshman at a small liberal arts college in Illinois. I knew several fellow students who were really activist minded about the environment, anti-war movement and other social issues. My geology professor was already a hard core environmentalist. The Nation wide and world wide Earth Day marches were quite something to see/read about.

Here we are in the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic. There have been many reports documenting the effect that all of the stay at home orders have had on Earth. Have you seen the air quality/pollution studies showing the very dramatic decrease in smog due to few people driving?  How about the video of the kangaroo hopping across an Australian city and only seeing one car?  Geologists studying earthquakes are seeing subtle readings on seismographs that before have been hidden due to human activity.

I read somewhere that the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic is Earth’s way of scolding humankind and sending us to our rooms until we learn how to behave. Makes sense to me. It is my hope that the “new normal”, what ever that turns out to be, will show much more respect for Earth. Our existence depends on it.

— stay safe, wash your hands,  stay healthy —

Souvenir from a Jellystone Park

/ Roadtirementvintage / 10 Comments

A while back Sher and I met a lot of our family members at an RV campground near Cleveland, Ohio. We stayed at a franchised campground with a Jellystone Park theme. Yes, right from the cartoon series with Yogi Bear, BooBoo, Cindy and the hapless Ranger.  We had a wonderful time as this was a perfect place for family activities.

Souvenir ornament

Souvenir photograph

 

 

 

 

 

 

The “Airstream” style ornament , while Christmas themed, is now permanently hanging from the window over our table in the RV. This souvenir is cute, lights up and reminds us of that fun time we all had at the Jellystone Park RV resort.

Do any of you collect souvenirs from your travel adventures?

Please Remember to  Stay Safe and Stay Healthy 

Roadtirement’s colorful companion

/ Roadtirementvintage / 11 Comments

Meet our good luck Joker

This Joker has been our good luck traveling companion for quite a while. He has seen three different RV’s we have used: Two travel trailers and our current Class C motor home. Joker quietly observes where we go, what we see and also what we eat, as he hangs above the kitchen sink!

Just curious, do any of you  have a good luck object in your RV, car, truck, house or whatever?

Remember to  Stay Safe and Stay Healthy 

 

Home is where you park it… What?

/ Roadtirementvintage / 12 Comments

We received this cute towel as a nice gift this past winter from our Austin family.

“Home is where you park it” is a clever pun, really, referring to those who travel in RV’s. We have been in self isolation for the past eight weeks due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Twice now I’ve started and run both the RV’s engine and the on board generator. Best not to let the rig set idle for too long. The cute thing is that our towel is still correct in what it states: The RV is in the driveway next to our house, our home.

Sher and I are really looking forward to the day when our “Home” will be parked in an RV parking spot that is not the driveway of our home base house.

DIY RV plumbing repair

/ Roadtirementvintage / 6 Comments

The cracked pump

While we were staying at the La Hacienda RV Resort in Austin this past winter we had a little plumbing issue in our RV. One evening Sher was sitting at the table and said “Maj, my feet just got wet.” Well, wet where it’s supposed to be dry is always a problem.

Long story short, there was a crack in the fresh water pump that supplies fresh water to the HWH, shower, toilet and sinks from the fresh water storage tank on board. After a check online and checking the leaking pump, I determined what replacement pump I needed. Ordered from Amazon, it arrived at the RV park 3 days later.

New pump ready to be connected

Installation finished. The white tank is the fresh water supply

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was not very difficult to remove the old pump and install the new one. The pump was in a compartment under the cushion for the table, easy removal. Two wires and two pipe connections were easy to hook up.  Fortunately the base plates on both had the same screw hole patterns. After about an hour I tested the newly installed water pump. It worked!

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema schedules Planet of the Apes

/ Roadtirementvintage / 10 Comments

Full size statue from the from the 1st movie

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is a nation wide chain of “dinner and a movie” entertainment. While they are closed due the COVID-19 restrictions, their website still shows a scheduled showing of the 1968 cult classic “Planet of the Apes” for August 30th this fall. Whether this showing happens remains to be seen.

Sher and I and our Austin family went to one of these theaters during our Winter Texan stay this past year. The seats are large and comfortable, and the table for your dinner is more than adequate. Food was good, too. We saw and enjoyed  Little Women.

Anyway,  I wanted to show you the huge statue in the lobby of the theater we went to

Ad for an Ape movie marathon

in Austin. The statue is from the actual movie Planet of the Apes. I asked one of the employees where it came from. Turns out the owner of the theater chain also owns the rights to the Planet of the Apes franchise. There were movie posters for all of the Ape movies displayed in the lobby as well as ads for an APE movie marathon of the original five movies.

Have you seen the Planet of the Apes movies? Can you name the original five titles? Might be a good topic for a “stay at home in isolation” set of trivia questions. Stay safe, dear readers. Don’t go ape!

 

Yellowstone bison owns the road

/ Roadtirementvintage / 28 Comments

Sher and I are not traveling now due to coronavirus, so we thought we’d share some of our BC pictures with you. (BC = before COVID-19)

We had just entered Yellowstone National Park from the East Entrance. As we saw Lake Yellowstone on the left we suddenly saw stopped traffic ahead. I thought maybe there was a crash. But no. Here came this magnificent bull bison just sauntering along, taking his time as if he owned the road. Wait! He did own the road.  Quite a start to our Yellowstone adventure.

Saguaro National Park in Arizona

/ Roadtirementvintage / 11 Comments

Sher and I are not traveling now due to coronavirus, so we thought we’d share some of our BC pictures with you. (BC = before COVID-19)

One of my favorite places on Earth is the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. This photo was taken in the Western Mountain District a few minutes before sunset. The stunning landscape is dotted with the magnificent saguaro cacti.

Remembering a distillery visit in Texas

/ Roadtirementvintage / 11 Comments

I thought it was time for something different than a post about the COVID-19 pandemic. Allow us to share a few photos and text about a nice local distillery we visited during our winter residence in Texas a few short weeks ago.

Fast Eddy logo in neon

The Hill Country near Austin is home to several breweries, wineries and distilleries. Near Dripping Springs one will find the Fast Eddy Vodka distillery. We stopped there one day near the closing time. The place was absolutely packed as there were the normal amount of cars and two huge tour buses that had filled the place with folks.

 

 

 

The bar of course had samples of the many varieties of flavored vodkas bottled at the facility. There was a very large distillery room with lots of tables. We looked at the merchandise, but did not really find any shirts we liked. Our purchases were limited to a couple of glasses with the Deep Eddy logo.  We passed on samples as we had been out all day visiting breweries. I was not really in the mood for even a sample of vodka.

Here is the Deep Eddy website. Notice that now the place is closed due to, you guessed it, COVID-19 restrictions. When we go to Texas in the future, we do plan on visiting Deed Eddy again.

Coronavirus has us isolated

/ Roadtirementvintage / 13 Comments

It’s been a couple of days since we last posted anything about our situation as it is affected by the whole COVID-19 issues facing the world. What have we been doing?

Self imposed isolation

You have heard about officials and even celebrities that  have put themselves in “isolation” when they find out they are positive for the corona virus. Well, we have on our own gone into isolation, and have been since we got back to our home from Texas. With my underlying health issues as well as age (69) I am very aware of how vulnerable I am if I become infected with this killer virus. The pandemic situation is very, very scary.

What we are doing to pass the time

Keeping up on the news is a constant thing we do. CNN.com has good live updates that cover news from around the world. Now keep in mind that the reports are frightening as they describe how the virus is effecting the world. We also catch the press conferences coming from the White House, even though Trump’s policies seem to be too little too late, and you have to take a lot of what he says with a grain of salt. (Remember his claims about Google working with the government for that web site?) We also watch the local and Network news daily.

We stay in touch with our kids and their families with messages, texts and video calls. Our kids have spread out all over the country. All but one is working from home now, and they are doing as good as can be expected. The communication is a god send: at least we can know that everybody is doing ok, and those conversations are one of the highlights of our days.

A lot of our time is spent on computers. It is our main source of ongoing updates about the COVID-19 pandemic around the world. Of course we also catch up on the blogs we follow, and do social media as well. Sher and I also have some online revenue sources we are continuing to utilize.

Streaming movies and shows

Another source of entertainment is of course streaming movies and tv shows. We are fortunate to have a Roku with which we get Netflix and Amazon Prime. We have found some good movies to watch, including some of the old classics. “Outbreak” with Dustin Hoffman (1996?) was pretty interesting given today’s news. Another classic is “Andromeda Strain” (1971). And then there is the TV series “Containment” that came out in 2016. This shows a serious and fatal virus hitting Atlanta, culminating in a partial lock down of the city. Worth a  binge viewing. A different genre, but still binge worthy is the two seasons of “Chosen One”. There is a religious cult hidden in the jungle, WHO workers are sent in to vaccinate, and thus begins the complex and contorted plot lines.

Took a drive today

Sher and I decided to get out of the house today for a little drive. We were curious to see if our town was feeling the effects of the pandemic. Indiana has 12 confirmed cases mostly in central and northern parts of the state. Our county has none, but we adjoin two counties with confirmed cases.  Anyway,  we drove around our small town and we observed that everything looked normal.  Walmart, Kroger and all the restaurants had full to semi full parking lots. Traffic was normal for a Sunday afternoon. Guess most do not have underlying health issues and are going on as usual…

We are still planning on staying in and safe. To all our dear fellow bloggers and readers: Please stay safe. If you are still on the road or in an RV resort or campground you still need to pay attention to “social distancing” and hygiene. Remember to wash those hands!

What are you all doing to get through the pandemic?