Ba-aba-abaaaa, an Unexpected Morning Alarm

Ba-aba-abaaaa, Ba-aba-abaaaa, Ba-aba-abaaaa was interrupting my dream. I listened carefully, and yes it sounded just like a goat, but I was sailing somewhere on the ocean in the middle of the night or so it seemed. After all this was a dream and anything was possible, even having a goat on the deck of a …

View full post

Costco Wine Guys

This is an advertisement for Costco Warehouse. One of the first things we search out when getting to a new place is the closest Costco . It is especially more wonderful when they are not located in Utah because Utah only allows wine and spirits to be sold in their state liquor stores. After living …

View full post

A Good Use for Your Balls

While camping at American RV Park in Albuquerque NM (June 2015), a large Class A rolled in near our site. Since we were walking Izzy when they came, the lady of the coach popped out. She took one look at Izzy and wanted to give him big pets. Izzy was like a people magnet. We …

View full post

Escaping the Flames

In October of 2014, on our third night out on the road to “somewhere” (we weren’t sure where we were going to wind up), we stayed at an RV park named Kiva RV Park & Horse Motel. We had agreed to work as a workamper or camp host for at least the next 6 weeks. …

View full post

Milk Jug Brain Teaser

In April of 2015, this puzzle was posed to me by Daryl, a long-time Kiva RV Park and Horse Motel resident who is sharper than a tack and has had a lifetime of experiences. Here we go! Your milkman stops by to deliver milk. All he has are 10 gallon jugs filled with milk. You …

View full post
Ba-aba-abaaaa, an Unexpected Morning AlarmCostco Wine GuysA Good Use for Your BallsEscaping the FlamesMilk Jug Brain Teaser

Oct 02 2015

Ba-aba-abaaaa, an Unexpected Morning Alarm

Categories:

California

by

4-IMG_8964Ba-aba-abaaaa, Ba-aba-abaaaa, Ba-aba-abaaaa was interrupting my dream. I listened carefully, and yes it sounded just like a goat, but I was sailing somewhere on the ocean in the middle of the night or so it seemed. After all this was a dream and anything was possible, even having a goat on the deck of a sail boat. However, the insistent Ba-aba-abaaaa sound pushed me to realism. I grew more conscious and the sound persisted until I awakened.

 

1-IMG_8934Ok, we were sorta camping at a Fairgrounds RV site at the beginning of October 2015. It could have goats. But we then heard more than goats. It was the sounds of children, a lot of young children. We were surprised to wake up to the 2015 Farm Day Event in the Yuba-Sutter County Fairgrounds in Yuba City, CA. We found out that once a year the 3rd grade of all the schools in Sutter and Yuba Counties attends this Farm Day (they estimated that around 2000 kids attended today). The purpose was to expose the children to a touch of farm life and animals. Well, if this was good enough for 3rd graders, it was good enough for us.

So, after coffee and breakfast we headed out with cameras in hand to attend the fair. It was wonderful to see all the kids (children not baby goats) at stations set up to teach the eager little minds about farm life treasures. The joy was expressed in the “awes” and surprises at some the things they were exposed to.

3-IMG_8933Shaking little cups of cream vigorously for about 5 minutes to make butter they could put on a cracker to taste their new creation gave some of them a new perspective on where food comes from. Petting the goats, pigs, sheep, chickens, bunnies, pony, horses, cow, baby cows (aka, calves), and Guinee pigs was a new experience for many of the children. Some delighted in it and some were not sure if it was a good idea. We heard one little person say that she touched a chicken feather and it was diseased and she couldn’t wash her hand. The teacher told her it was ok, after all, the keeper of the chicken was holding the whole chicken and he looked fine.

2-IMG_8926There were stations demonstrating and explaining various areas of farm activities. Master gardening, roping, search & rescuing, crop dusting as well as forestry, mosquito control, nature bowl, and plant propagation were some of the topics presented in order to expand the little minds. Of course, there were animals to pet, see and learn about. To top off the learning experience, one would expect a big tractor to be a part of the fair, and there were two.

All in all, it looked like the kids had a great day at the annual fair Farm Day and so did we. You never know what you will wake up to when you live in a RV full-time. Maybe a fair might be brewing.

5-IMG_8939

Tags:

Leave comment

Oct 01 2015

Costco Wine Guys

Categories:

California

by

This is an advertisement for Costco Warehouse. One of the first things we search out when getting to a new place is the closest Costco . It is especially more wonderful when they are not located in Utah because Utah only allows wine and spirits to be sold in their state liquor stores. After living in Utah for so many years, we love being able to buy our wine in Costco, for their prices are really good.

wine-guysAfter researching, with the help of Google (this is NOT an advertisement for Google), we found the closest Costco was located in Roseville, CA. So we headed to Roseville which was about an hour’s drive from our RV’s parked location (aka, Yuba City). It was a beautiful drive and when we arrived, the parking lot and store were a mad house. I had never seen such a crowd in any Costco. We worked our way to the wine section and started looking for some good wines when we were approached by a gentleman who asked us what kinds of wines we liked. It took me a minute to realize that he worked for Costco and his job was to help folks like us to spend more money on wine and answer any questions we had.

Wow, this was different and really cool. But better than that, turns out that there were two wine gentlemen helpers (aka “Wine Guys”), Bob and Bill (aka “B-squared”). We spent a better part of an hour being entertained and laughing while we walked around choosing wines that they deem good in our price range.

I would strongly recommend if you are ever in Roseville CA, it would be worth going to Costco’s wine section and be entertained by Bob and Bill. Plus you can get some pretty nice wines at great prices.

Tags: ,

Leave comment

Sep 23 2015

A Good Use for Your Balls

Categories:

New Mexico

by

While camping at American RV Park in Albuquerque NM (June 2015), a large Class A rolled in near our site. Since we were walking Izzy when they came, the lady of the coach popped out. She took one look at Izzy and wanted to give him big pets. Izzy was like a people magnet.

IMG_8038We got to talking to her about all kinds of things while her hubby proceeded to get their rig settled into the site. When he came around to the front of the rig with a couple of tennis balls in his hand we wondered what he was going to do with them. He proceeded to show us. Yep, he put them under his windshield wiper arms so that the blades did not touch the front window.

Ok, why did he to this? Research became necessary, since he didn’t say anything and he had more things to do to set up.

Here’s what we found: windshield wiper blades often go for long periods of time without being used.  After being pressed against the window and being bent to one side for a long time, the blade will want to stay bent and not flip back and forth like they were originally designed to do. Using a tennis ball between the windshield wiper arm and the coach will take this pressure off the blade and thus they will not take a set in one direction. Pretty cool.

Who would have ever guessed that you could use tennis balls for such a purpose. We just hope that it works here in Very Windy New Mexico. We would hate to see these folks lose their balls.

Tags:

Leave comment

Aug 17 2015

Escaping the Flames

Categories:

Kiva RV Park

by

In October of 2014, on our third night out on the road to “somewhere” (we weren’t sure where we were going to wind up), we stayed at an RV park named Kiva RV Park & Horse Motel. We had agreed to work as a workamper or camp host for at least the next 6 weeks.

We had big plans for the following day, which was not only our first training and work day, but we had to move our 5th Wheel from the back row to the first. Apparently, having a spot on the front row meant something. Maybe it was that we were important, special, or easy to watch. Anyway, we decided that early evening to take Izzy for a walk over to the office and talk to the manager about whatever we were supposed to do the next day.

All of a sudden, one of the campers came barreling through the front door of the office hollering that there was a camper on fire in the back row. Panic hit us. Back row? That was the row our fifth wheel was on. Shirley took off running while Natalie and the manager, Reba headed for a golf cart.

FIRE AT KIVA - Fire Trucks -KRVPk -02Once we all reached the back row, we could see a burning Class A coach with flames jumping around above the center of its roof. It was our neighbor’s in the next site over. Thank God, it wasn’t our 5th Wheel was one of our first thoughts. The other thought was that our RV was sooooo close… that we only had minutes to try to move it before it caught fire too.

Both of us sprang into action. Shirley gave Izzy to the person next to her, and Natalie flew into our coach to get the slides pulled in. She had to move a bunch of stuff because we weren’t going to move the RV until the next day. Meanwhile, Shirley was desperately working on getting stabilizers up so the coach could be moved without damage. We were very lucky for we hadn’t unhitched the RV, and the truck was ready to pull out of the site as soon as we could get things ready. Within a few minutes, which seemed like hours, Natalie was able to move the RV to a safe place.

Shirley went looking for Izzy and Natalie went to console the poor folks who owned the Class A rig. The fire department showed up quicker than we expected since Kiva is miles from any kind of town. All ‘n all, it was an heart-pounding experience we don’t want to enjoy again, the poor Class A was totaled, and it was a blessing that everyone was safe and sound.

Tags:

Leave comment

Jul 27 2015

Milk Jug Brain Teaser

Categories:

Brain Teaser, Kiva RV Park

by

In April of 2015, this puzzle was posed to me by Daryl, a long-time Kiva RV Park and Horse Motel resident who is sharper than a tack and has had a lifetime of experiences.

Here we go!

Your milkman stops by to deliver milk. All he has are 10 gallon jugs filled with milk. You only want to purchase 4 gallons… but you only have an empty 3 gallon and 5 gallon jug. All the jugs only have FULL indicators. Note that the milkman wants to keep all of his 10 gallon jugs.

Milk-Can-Brain-Teaser---Solution-1.bHow do you exactly measure out 4 gallons of milk, just using the 3 available jugs?

There are two solutions.

Solution 1:

Fill up the 3 gallon jug from the 10 gallon one, and then dump those 3 gallons into the 5 gallon jug.

Fill up the 3 gallon jug again from the milkman’s 10 gallon jug, then use the 3 gallon jug to fill up the 5 gallon jug which removes 2 gallons from your 3 gallon jug and leaves 1 gallon.

Dump the entire contents of the 5 gallon jug back into the milkman’s jug.

Put the 1 gallon that was left over in the 3 gallon jug into the 5 gallon jug.

Fill the 3 gallon jug from the milkman’s jug.

Voila! You now have 3 gallons in one jug and 1 gallon in the other for a total of 4 gallons.

 

Recap

10 gal Jug 5 gal Jug 3 gal Jug
10 0 0
7 0 3
7 3 0
4 3 3
4 5 1
9 0 1
9 1 0
6 1 3

 

 

 

Milk-Can-Brain-Teaser---Solution-2.bSolution 2:

Fill up the 5 gallon jug from the 10 gallon one, and then pour 3 of those gallons into the 3 gallon jug, leaving 2 gallons in the 5 gallon jug.

Empty the 3 gallon jug back into the milkman’s jug.

Put the 2 gallons that are in the 5 gallon jug into the 3 gallon jug.

Fill the 5 gallon jug from the milkman’s jug.

Fill up the 3 gallon jug from the 5 gallon jug by pouring 1 gallon, leaving 4 gallons left in the 5 gallon jug.

Voila, now your 5 gallon jug is holding 4 gallons of milk.

To wrap up, pour all the milk from the 3 gallon jug back into the milkman’s jug.

Recap

10 gal Jug 5 gal Jug 3 gal Jug
10 0 0
5 5 0
5 2 3
8 2 0
8 0 2
3 5 2
3 4 3
6 4 0

 

Tags:

Leave comment

May 23 2015

Gathering Firewood in the Desert

Categories:

Kiva RV Park, New Mexico

by

In early November 2014, Shirley and I, along with Reba (Kiva RV Park’s manager) and a tent camper, had the delightful experience of collecting dead wood from the “salt flats” near Kiva. This area is in a depression and grows a ton of salt cedar trees. These are a scrubby looking tree that contaminate the ground by depositing salt into the soil. This makes it very difficult for anything else to grow. However, a die-hard mesquite tree or two is also lurking around.

salt-flats-3

salt-flats-1

salt-flats-2

A lot of the wood could be obtained by just breaking the dead wood off, and down into smaller pieces. But some was a little bigger around than could be comfortably broken by hand. Then the Black & Decker Alligator chainsaw (aka, “jaws”) came into play. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a fully charged battery, and didn’t bring a swap-out battery, either. So, Jaws’ playtime was relatively short.

Four women scrabbling through dead trees, hoping not to surprise a snake or two, yelling out when we find a good spot for gathering wood, is a ton of fun.

shirley-with-wood-in-truck

roaring-fireAnd the Autumn evening fires that we built while roasting marshmallows and sipping wine, were so very nice. Salt cedar wood makes a very hot fire that burns fast. Perfect for keeping us warm on a chilly evening. I’m getting mesmerized by the memory of staring into the flames. So peaceful and wonderful. All the scratches and minor bruises earned while collecting the wood were a small price to pay.

Tags:

Leave comment

Page 1 of 3123