steved44

We had a 1TB backup drive fail last year and had to have it rebuilt. They actually replaced one of the internal read/write heads and managed to save the data. Many pictures would have been lost. It cost about $750 to have the job done, but we were in a bad situation and had to go with it. Darn computers anyway!!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our Escapee friends from Seattle! GO PACK!!

Rain and 38 degrees here this morning, I didn't think my heat pumps would work under 40 degrees, but I tried them yesterday and they did fine. I can run two of them on 30A and still have a little left over. Coldest it got was 30 and they were still putting out heat. Hmmmmm Yeah, Lee, the poor girl has had the same old crab at the table for quite a while now!

Sounds great! You will really like the cataract surgery! All those colored fuzzy things outside the windshield were "CARS"!

We could use a bit of that Pilot Knob weather right now. We are spending Thanksgiving with my brother and his family in Seattle and then heading South. It's supposed to dust us with snow tomorrow, so we're ready for warmer weather. At least the sun is out, but it's "cold sun"!! Yesterday my brother came over on the ferry and brought two crab pots. We went to Fort Flagler and crabbed from the dock over there. It was cold, but we got our limit in a few hours and after cooking and picking them, we had enough for a crab appetizer for thanksgiving. Mmmmmm good!

We have one of those Therapik things, but I can't figure out how to heat coffee with it

I know what you mean about insects. I was in the Bus in line at the kiosk for the ferry. I had my credit card out to pay for the trip, and Carol was in the truck, as it was cheaper to separate the two. I looked down and there was a big (gets bigger with each telling) hornet on my leg. I couldn't move as my seat belt was still hooked. So I assaulted the hornet with the credit card, flailing around and finally cut it in two by the gearshift pad before it got to sting me. I looked up and there were no cars in front of me and the guy was frantically waving at me to come up to the kiosk. I told him what had happened and he started laughing. He said I was ducking, shucking & Jiving and he didn't know what was happening. I wouldn't recommend a credit card as my choice of weapon, but as long as there are no additional charges on it I guess it's ok! We had our share of wind and rain yesterday and are supposed to get more rain this evening. It's getting into the 30's at night and about 45 in the daytime so it's time to starting looking south. Happy travels Steve

To all the veterans in our group, Thanks for your service and preserving our way of life!!

Dave, we knew right away that you didn't have any class, so we had to take you in for Diane's sake!

We've been busy for the last couple of days. Steve & Sandy Allgire (class of 07) were also camping in Oak Harbor, and their home Elks club there was where we were parked. We had a knock on the door and it was Steve & Sandy . They were out for dinner at the Elks and saw my facebook post that were staying there. They came to the bus after dinner and we had a nice visit. They told us all about their adventures on their Alaska trip. Nice to see them again. Then we had a nice dinner with Joe & Sharon (she's way to good for you Joe), and spent a couple of hours catching up with them. After that we went to the movie Specter, and that was a great flic in the James (shaken not stirred) tradition. Yesterday we watched the Packer game , loaded BessyBus on the ferry and moved from Oak Harbor to Port Townsend. The GPS kept telling me to make a U turn as soon as possible, but after I tried to explain ferry to her a number of times, she finally relented and let us go across the water. We were loaded first, so we got the best seat in the house for the trip. The ferry workers were really nice, and got us on and off with no problems. We came to the SKP park at Chimacum, but no one was in the office and we just had to park where we could. After we parked, we found out the water was not on in our section , and today, when the office was open, we found out we had to move. Now we are finally settled in and hooked up. First full hook ups for awhile, so it feels good to have sewer again. . Life's little pleasures!! All that made me tired, so I guess a Steve is in orderZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Naah, Joe, as soon as the kitchen came out with the knife, she decided her knee was in "great shape"!

Hey, Julie, we can do that operation around the campfire. IYQ has some good sharp knives and I know we can find some anesthetic around there somewhere Carol did really good with her knee, and I know you will too. Anyone who can swing her leg over a Harley should have no problem. We will probably be there in Q early too. I talked to Wayne and Barbara, from Oklahoma and they will be with us at Q also. Not sure when they plan on coming, but probably during "show time". I think Randy & Liz will be there too with our old bus, so we get to see it again. Nice sunny day in the 50's here in Oak Harbor today, and we are getting ready to raid Joe's place in a few minutes. Have a good one! Steve

Boy, you guys and all your rain stories. You're all going to RUST! Well, we did get rain here too in Arlington Washington (almost in EH country), but it was mostly gentle and just did a great job of putting us to sleep. We were dry camping at our Nieces place and helping her a little getting her horse boarding business going. My brother Paul and his wife Diane came up from Seattle, brought some tools and we got a few things done. We set up some electric fences, built a couple of horse jumping pole holders, set some "T" posts and generally kept out from under foot. Good to see her and finally getting to meet her new husband John in the process. Yesterday we moved over to Whidbey Island, and are sneaking up on Joe to see if we can steal a little baaaaad Whiskey! Right now we are hanging out at the Elks club and having a good time exploring the island. No frost around here yet, so we'll stay a while before we start down the coast. You can stop all the RV water tests now ya hear!! Steve

Ok, the menu for tonight is "Chateaugay spaghetti"! For the uninitiated, it's an old recipe from an upstate NY hotel that I got from my mother! The only trick is getting to Arlington Washington by 7:00 this evening.

Liz, Borrego is one place we've never been. Don't know why, but whenever we were in the area we were in a hurry to get somewhere else. Maybe this year. Steve

Ok, Brandon, I have that CRS disease you know!

We went to that RV show in Tampa three years ago and it was a good one. They had quite a few high end units there that we could never afford, but if we took our shoes off then we could "go on board"! We were staying at the Elks club in Bradenton, so it was pretty close. They have about 23 spaces there so it was a nice place, but you have to "love trains"!! Roger, if they ran you out of Florida, Texas may be a good fit for you. It's big enough for you to be able to hide in a lot of places! Now the Seattle rain! We have been all over the country this year and not had the bus washed until we showed up here. As soon as we got on the West side of the Cascades it started fogging and raining. Hmmmm Looks like rain the rest of the week, and then it's going to start raining. Oh well, it's nice seeing my brother and family so if I rust I'll just have to rub it off in Arizona!! Happy travels everyone!

Julie, we will be in Q for sure and probably go to the Winter Blast also. We actually know some people in Havasu, so we may stop in to see them too.

Well we made it over the cascades today and are parked at my nieces place near Everett Washington. We took route 2 through Stevens Pass and it was a beautiful ride. The East side was fine, but coming down the West side was a bit more difficult. It was not the steepness of the road or the turns, but there were narrow bridges that would give you a start as you approached them and make you wish you had some grease on your mirrors to keep sliding past the oncoming traffic. We managed to get here without any problems and now are getting ready to take a Steve for the night. Hope everyone had a great day today. Randy & Liz, glad to see you on here and hope you can learn to speak Arizonian instead of Texan! Winter?? we just keep outrunning it!! Ha Ha

Yes it does Linda, but I don't think it has done one in a while. Maybe it did! Oh well, it works now. Steve

One of life's great mysteries I guess. Mine quit working with firefox (after it had worked on it since we started this), so I loaded chrome on my pc a few months ago to fix it. I have been trying with firefox every few days but it has never worked until today. Go figure

Hey, Jeri, what happened with the map? I have firefox and for many months I couldn't see the pins on the map! I had to go to chrome to be able to see them. Now all of a sudden I can see them on firefox again. That's great, but I didn't change anything on this end. Maybe all those drones disturbed the space time continuum. Hmmmm

Thanks everyone for the well wishes. Toni, Carol got a little more use out of hers than you did, but if this happens again, it's history!! If she doesn't get it taken out, I'm going to do it!! Scared the hell out of me. Dave, Yes Yes Yes, oh how right you are........ Hey, Lee watch it!! Jim and Sandy are broken down on I-17 south of Flagstaff. Looks like a wheel bearing on their trailer gave up. They have been there 5 hours or so, but I think they have some help now. No fun breaking down that's for sure.

We finally left Lewiston this morning after a somewhat rough evening yesterday. Carol decided to have a gallbladder attack at about 5:00 and we didn't know whether it was a heart attack or not so we ran to the hospital. While they were checking her out, she must have passed the stone, as she started feeling better all of a sudden. They ran a number of tests, and finally turned her loose at about 8:00! We were both a little shook up after that and it took a while to settle down and decide whether we would leave today or not. She felt fine this morning so we decided to take off. It was an interesting day of driving through central Washington state and finally threw out the anchor at a Loves truck stop on I-90. Busy place, but we needed fuel anyway and found a pretty good place to park out of traffic, and along a fence so we can put a slide out. We took HW 12 out of Lewiston, then 260 and 261 North to link up with I-90. 260 is a nice paved road, but really twisty down to the snake river and back. Then we drove through beautiful wheat fields. Didn't realize that central Washington was big wheat country. We couldn't take our eyes off the road too much, but it was a great drive. Now time to take a Steve and get ready for Seattle tomorrow. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Congratulations, Delce, Echo sounds like a real charmer.