Life on the road

A Work Day At Payne Lake

This post is an experiment to see if I am going to get bumped off by Hughesnet when I upload my normal amount of photos for a post. Keep yer fingers crossed that I don’t.

When we arrived here at Payne Lake last week, we discovered that the entrance office was a mess. There was a lot of trash and stuff that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned up in years. Our first task was to get that cleaned up and ready for us to work in. This is what it looked like before we started:

(The work counter. What the heck???)

(a storage shelf)

(the floor)

It took us both working about four hours to get it in order, but look at it now:

Today, while we were working at the entrance station again, we decided to do some clean-up of the grounds. FabGrandpa used the backpack blower:

And I used the rake:

You’ll just have to trust me on that. Someone had to take the pictures! And even though I still have that palpable mass, that still flares up and makes my arm hurt if I do too much, I also still have my friends the Lortab and Naprosyn, so I did push that rake around quite a bit.

By the end of our shift, we had the place looking very nice! We’ll be doing this same thing in the campground in the coming weeks, to get it cleaned up, too. I love it when a plan comes together.

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The Internetz Is Making My Head Hurt

Karen · 15 Comments

Literally. Yesterday the remainz of Tropical Storm Ida was here, pouring bucketz of rain on us. The modem for our satellite internet service from Hughesnet is located outside. I had to go out there and re-set the modem by unplugging it to turn it off, then plugging it back in. I had a towel on my head (since I don’t own an umbrella) to keep me dry. As I was coming back into the house, I hit my head on the arm of the awing. Hard. Really hard. Ouchie! I saw starz for a minute, then felt lighheaded for most of the day.

We have been having a little trouble with this Hughesnet setup–we found out in the course of living that we can have 200 MB of downloaded data in 24 hours. If you go over that 200 MB, they cut you off. Of course, if you do your downloading between the hours of 1:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m., you can download as much as you want and not be penalized. Except for losing sleep. On their website, Hughesnet says that most people should have no problem with this “fair access” policy of theirs, that 200 MB of data should be plenty to surf the internetz, read email, etc.

Except that apparently, FabGrandpa and I have gone over the 200 MB of data download permitted for three days in a row, before 10:00 a.m. I watched a couple of 2-3 minute videos on Facebook the first day, and BAM! my internetz was cut off quicker than you can say “Shazam!”

And then the next day, FabGrandpa was playing a game on his laptop, that even though he plays it as a single player, goes online and downloads data in the background even if you don’t tell it to. So, we were slapped on the wrist and cut off again. That is when we called technical support at Hughesnet and were informed of their policy, and that we have to monitor our usage from this end, to prevent this from happening, because apparently, if we go over the 200 MB of allowed data downloads too many times in a month, we will be banned from using this service FOREVER! So, now I need to figure out how to monitor the download usage. I don’t do well with staying up past midnight in order to use the internetz.

I am working on this technical difficulty, and yes, I do see it as a technical difficulty–I need to be able to upload photos and do blog posts, and read my emails and check Facebook, and several forums that I read. I have product reviews to write and things I need to say. So, if you don’t see me here often, or if you don’t see many photos, you will know why. Until I get this headache resolved.

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We Are Being Invaded!

Karen · 11 Comments

It’s not the invasion of the body snatchers, or the pod people–just some ladybug beetles. And yeah, they are soooo cute–unless you suddenly have a couple hundred of them in your house.

While they may be cute on little girl’s dresses, they are still bugs crawling around in my home, and I don’t like them at all!

There seems to be millions of them swarming around outside our trailer, creeping around looking for a tiny space to get inside. Some of them made it in, I have no idea where or how. I spent a good part of the day, walking around inside with a plastic bag, picking them up and putting them in the bag so I could take them outside.

These ones are on the inside of the window. They are like that on all the windows. I am just so creeped out by this. I hope they are gone soon.

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I Have A Confession To Make

Karen · 7 Comments

I have looking forward to our stay in Alabama so much. I was secretely counting the days until we could leave the Grand Canyon and get ourselves down south again. I have missed my family and friends down here so much! But I have to confess, I have really missed the food, too.

(this is my home cooked fried catfish)

We have been in Alabama for a week, and I have eaten fried catfish 5 times since I got here. I am probably going to turn into a big ol’ catfish, with a slippery skin and thin, one strand mustache hanging out by my nose quite soon. And grow gills. And if I don’t turn into a catfish I will be fatter for sure! But how can you resist that true, southern fried catfish when you see it on the menu? I have eaten it for breakfast with grits and fried eggs. For lunch with home made cole slaw and french fries. And tonight I had it for dinner, cooked at home and served with garlic new potatoes and squash casserole.

It doesn’t help that we have found the most fabulous little restaurant less than two miles from our campsite. It is located in a gas station, which is not unusual her in the south. Pleasant Valley Grocery Store is the official name of the place, but it is a little gas station with a tiny restaurant tucked inside.

They cater to the deer hunters that frequent this area, the ones who stay at the campground we are hosting. They sell candy, sodas, bread, snacks and beer. And have the best southern fried catfish I have ever put in my mouth. It came with cole slaw and home fries. FabGrandpa had the smoked barbecue pork ribs–it was the first time I have EVER heard him ask for a to go box because he couldn’t eat it all. EVER. In 18 years.

The people who run the place are so nice! They greet us each time we come in as if they have known us all their lives. Like they are so happy to see us! The second time we came in, they asked if we were going to have iced tea, and remembered that I get the unsweetened tea. The SECOND time.

They have University of Alabama memorabilia on the walls (a little bit of Auburn University stuff, too, but they definitely lean towards Alabama) There is a crockpot of boiled peanuts over on the counter, too.

They have a pretty good cup of coffee, too. I’m telling you, if you come to this area, and don’t go to this place, you are messing up! You’ll miss the best fried catfish ever in the history of the earth!

(I have not been paid to write about Pleasant Valley Restaurant. This is just my opinion, take it or leave it)

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I Got A New Camera!

Karen · 10 Comments

I have been using my old camera since 2003? I think. I got it when we lived in McAllen, Texas, and we left there in January 2005. It has been a good camera, but it was time for a new one, because it has been acting a little fickle for a year or so. It just turns itself off at will, or doesn’t take pictures whenever it doesn’t feel like it. And while I haven’t missed any truly important shots, I just wasn’t happy with it anymore.

When I found out that I was to receive a cash award from my job, I decided to use that money to get a new camera. So, when I saw that the money was in my bank account, we went to Tuscaloosa yesterday to get a new one.

Since I took this picture in a mirror, it is backwards. This is a Nikon Coolpix S630. It is 12 megapixels and 7X zoom. And when I took this picture:

the readout on the LED screen said “Did someone blink?”. That cracked us up! Now I still wonder how the camera knew that FabGrandpa blinked. I was soooo excited to find out it has a setting for taking pictures of food. Since you KNOW I love to take pictures of food almost as much as I love to eat:

pancakes

bacon

BBQ salad

It does a pretty good job with landscapes too. This was taken with the “night-time landscape” setting. It was almost dark outside when I took this photo.

And it was after dark when I took this one.

I think I am going to have lots of fun with this new camera. As soon as I figure out how everything works.

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Our Sweet Home In Alabama!

Karen · 9 Comments

After a trip that took us six days to drive 1810 miles, through 6 states and 3 time zones, we have arrived at our winter home in Greensboro, Alabama. Payne Lake Campground in the Talledega National Forest is where we will be spending the next few months. The folks we’ll be working with are very glad to see us, and we are just as glad to be here.

This place is gorgeous. We have a really nice campsite, up on a hill, overlooking the lake. There is a washer and dryer, and a freezer for us to use while we are here. A golf cart, and a riding lawn mower, and best of all, satellite internet service right at our site! We feel really loved already and we just got here.

This is the entrance road to the campground and day use area. We stopped here to wait for Joe, the forest service guy to meet us there and show us where we our campsite is.

Another view of the entrance road. The closest town is 16 miles away in Greensboro. It is very quiet here.

One more view of the entrance road.

This is our front yard at our campsite. There is a huge oak tree, a picnic table, a fire ring, and you can see the lake across the road.

The West Campground has 18 sites, 9 of them have water and electric hook-ups, the other nine have only water. At the East Campground there are 32 primitive sites for tents with no hook-ups. The East campground is closed right now, as they do not have water over there at the moment. That is coming, and there will be another camp host couple over on that side in a couple of weeks.

More of the campground. This campground is really nice, we would recommend it to anyone. The larger sites with water and electric look like they could accomodate a 30 foot RV or trailer.

This was on Saturday–it was a beautiful day, with sunshine and puffy clouds. These geese probably don’t know there are alligators in that lake!

There’s our trailer, up on that hill. Doesn’t that look nice?

And this was taken from the dam. The fall colors are just starting here but it is already beautiful. I know soon it will be winter, so we are enjoying this view while we can.

Today, Joe came over and took us on a tour of the place, showing us where to get supplies, what we are expected to do, and such as that. Tomorrow, we go to town to pick up some personal supplies, then the next day we’ll get to work getting things in shape for campers who will be coming in soon.

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Louisiana, Mississippi, Still Going to Alabama…

Karen · 2 Comments

From 186 miles we were on I-20 in Louisiana, going east towards Mississippi. The road in Louisiana was very rough, and made for a painful ride for me.

I was very happy to see the Mississippi River up ahead. I always love when we cross the Mississippi, whichever direction we are going.

When we are headed east, it always symbolizes to me that we are officially back in the south. We spent the last 18 months in Arizona, and while I love it out there, it definitely is not the south. So when we crossed the river, I was very happy to be “home”.

We made really good time across Mississippi. The Weather Channel was calling for heavy rains, but we never got any of it. The radar maps showed it all north of us. I was very thankful for that. The road improved and smoothed out after we cross the state line. I was thankful for that, too.

We stopped for the night in Pelahatchie at Yogi On The Lake RV park. It is a part of Legacy Resorts Corporation–I did not like it that when we called to make a reservation, the person we talked to was not at the campground we were making the reservation for. They told us that the office would be closed when we arrived but that they would leave us a map to our site.

When we got there, there was no late arrival info for us. I was a little bit upset by that, as I have worked at campgrounds for 9 years now, and I have always left maps for the late arrivals. I felt like it was poor service to us. The other thing is that they DO have wireless internet in the park, and we picked up a fantastic signal for it, but they required a sign-in code, which we did not have because they did not leave our information outside for us as late arrivals. Just something to be aware of if you are traveling through Mississippi anytime in the future.

They do have long pull through sites, and they are quite level, so that was a plus. Just be sure to ask for your sign-in code for the Wi-Fi when you have them on the phone if you are going to get there after the office closes.

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Wichita Falls RV Park in Wichita Falls, Texas

Karen · 7 Comments

At least we waited til after the sun came up to leave Tucumcari. We saw lots of windmills and wind turbines in New Mexico. The old fashioned windmills pump water for the many cows and other agricultural uses:

And the modern wind turbines produce electricity. If you click the photo below to enlarge it you may be able to see the turbines on the ridge across this field. I counted at least 60 of them over there. They are HUGE! A sign we saw says that each one produces 1.5 megawatts of electricity. I don’t know exactly how much that is but it must be a lot.

Ok, so I looked it up for us all to know. From this website: Oregon Power Solutions:

“…How many homes can one megawatt of wind energy supply?
An average U.S. household uses about 10,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity each year. A one-megawatt wind turbine can generate between 2.4 million and 4 million kWh annually, depending on the average wind speed at the site. Therefore, a single one-megawatt wind turbine generates enough electricity to power 240 to 400 households….”

So, if there were 60 of those things, they could produce enough electricity for up to 24,000 homes. Wow!

The turbines were out in the fields, so a farmer could still use the land to ranch or grow cotton or peanuts, and also receive lease payments for a power company to put those wind turbines on their property. That is a good use of resources in my opinion.

Another thing that was amazing to me is that there was so many ranches and farms, and you could see at a glance what these people do to make a living. They grow cotton, peanuts, sorghum, and corn. We saw a peanut processing plant, cotton gins, feed lots, feed and seed silos, farm implement sales lots. I guess I lived in cities for so long I either never knew or forgot about all the agricultural occupations that existed. See how beautiful that cotton field is?

We saw flocks of geese flying south for the winter. That is also amazing to me how those birds know when the cold weather is coming, and take flight before the first snow.

We DIDN’T see any rattlesnakes, but this sign had me looking for them. This was at a rest area east of Amarillo on Hwy 287.

We stopped for the night at Wichita Falls RV Park in Wichita Falls, Texas. The guy who works in the office there can not give directions. We called him twice, and he failed to give correct directions both times. If you are going south on Hwy 287, take exit 1-A, get all the way over to the right, turn right at the first light, and stay on that road until you see the sign for the RV park. That guy had us running all over Wichita Falls pulling that trailer. It is hard to turn around when you have a 34′ trailer behind you, ya know? They weren’t making any dinner for us, either, so I made some potato salad.

And this was a little interesting: a collection of fire hydrants, each one painted a different color, at the RV park. Hmmmm……

We made about 410 miles today–not bad. Tomorrow, we head for Shreveport.

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