Need a CB for Alaska

We will move the motor home from our pad to Wade’s RV in Sapulpa, Oklahoma tomorrow morning.  We have an appointment with Wade’s to install a CB in the motor home.  The motor home has an antennae that was installed at the factory but did not come with a CB when we bought it.  I have tried to find the coax cable that appears to be attached to the antennae but I can’t find it under the dash.  Also the top of the antennae, the whip, is gone.  I guess since it is gone and the regular radio whip on the other side of the motor home is also gone that someone at the factory didn’t tighten the allen screw that holds them.  We have always just used walkie talkies when traveling with other RVer but feel like it would be good to be able to talk to other people further away when we are going across great distances in Canada and Alaska.  We need to be at Wade’s at 8am tomorrow so we are planning on leaving here about 6:30am

Maintenance on the Jeep

I took the Jeep in for an oil change last week and while they were under the Jeep they told me I had a torn boot on the CV Joint on the front drivers side.  I guess I must have gotten a rock into it when we were in Colorado last summer.  Of course after several months of dirt and water getting into the joint it was shot.  I took it to my trusted mechanic Billy Simpson in Yale last week and he ordered a re-built joint for it.  I wanted a new one but it wasn’t available for that side.  Yesterday morning I took the Jeep in and left it with him.  We also had a problem with the blower on the AC/heater.  It would only run on high.  We had a third problem which he couldn’t fix since his code reader wouldn’t read the problem.  It is the light on the dash that shows when the transfer case is in 4 wheel high or low range.  When it is in 2 wheel, rear drive only, it shows a light that says it is in 4 wheel high.  Not a big problem, just annoying.  Billy fixed the CV joint and the blower on the AC/heater (which was just a resistor) and it only cost $178 for all of it,  which I thought was very reasonable.  Can you imagine what it would have cost if I had taken it to a Jeep dealer?

We also had lunch at the Mexican Restaurant in Yale with Jack and Barbara Miller.  We had arranged to meet them at the restaurant  when we were at the campout.  The  restaurant has a buffet from 11am to 2pm Monday through Friday for $7.00 and if your over 62 it’s half price.  If that wasn’t a good enough deal, it is also really good food.

We are now in the final countdown to leaving for Alaska.  Yesterday was 1 month away.  We are starting to look at what we can put into storage and what we will take with us.  Yesterday I took most of the movie DVD’s that were in their own case and although they weren’t very heavy took up a lot of room.  I put them into CD holders and reduced the amount of room needed to store them by about 90%.  I must have had close to 60 movies.  Several of them are movies I have bought but we haven’t watched yet.  We are saving them for when we are in the middle of Canada or Alaska and don’t have any TV.  With the generator we don’t plan on “ruffin it” anymore than we have to.

I thought I would again put a picture of our view while we are parked at my son’s at the pad here in the Cushing area.

Austin’s Birthday

Austin is my grandson.  He is Todd’s son and I will brag on him.  He is an outstanding student.  He is in the 10th grade at Yale High School but will be taking college courses next year at OSU.  He is also a very good kid.  Yes, I am very proud of him and he had his 16th birthday Sunday the 18th.  His mom and dad and Twila and I went to the “Texas Roadhouse” Restaurant in Stillwater Sunday night to celebrate his birthday and he was made (under protest) to get on their saddle and they made a big deal about his birthday.  Really a great time and great steaks.

April Campout

We went to the campout at Heyburn Lake on Wednesday the 14th.  There were several RV’s already there.  Maybe I can remember them all.  John and Mary Sexton, Dan and Ann Raper, Jim and Vera Bierd, Dewayne and Vicki Jackson, and Ray and Anna Lee Sexton.  Pete and Margie Kelly pulled in right behind us and Bert and Jana Huffman came in later in the afternoon.  Jack and Barbara Miller weren’t suppose to come until Thursday but they showed up about 6pm.  We had invited Bert and Jana over for steaks and when Jack and Barbara showed up we defrosted a couple more.  We had a great time.  It was really nice being at the campout.  We hadn’t been to one since last fall.  We are planning on making the May campout before we take off for Alaska.

Twila drove over to Perkins and picked up Gage Prough.  He is my nephew and Twila’s grandson.  He stayed with us Friday and Saturday nights.  My brother Bill, his wife Pat and their adopted granddaughter/daughter Bre also came over Friday night in their motor home and stayed the weekend.

Just fillin’ in the holes

In what can only be called a burst of wisdom I decided the only way to post a new entry was to start writing one.  It probably sounds simple to you and I guess that would describe me.  When we left Aransas Pass, Texas the morning of March 25th we drove to the Wally World at Bellmead, Texas.  Bellmead is a little north of Waco, Texas on I-35.  We dry camped there overnight which included running the back bedroom furnace and some 12 volt lights.  No problems.  We are in the planning stages for doing a lot of dry camping on our way to Alaska this summer.  The next morning, 3-26 we drove on up to the Lake Texoma Area.  We stopped at the Eisenhower Campground on the Texas side of the lake.  We spent Friday and Saturday nights there and left Sunday morning the 28th for Oklahoma City.  We went to the Texoma Area to see my oldest son Thad.  He came over to the campground Friday evening after he got off work and we talked about going out for supper Saturday night.  He and Christa, hope I spelled that right, and her daughter Caitlin came by Saturday and we drove into Sherman, Texas to the Golden Corral.  It’s hard to beat the Golden Corral for good food and plenty of it.  Wish I had remembered to take a picture of them but of course I didn’t.  When we left Sunday morning for Oklahoma City we went back south to Highway 82 and then west to I-35 North.  This was a much better road but it also brought us back by the Winstar Casino at the Oklahoma line.  We didn’t stay long and Twila was down but caught up just before we left.  We drove up to the Flying J at exit 33 and had lunch and put a little diesel in the motor home.  We got to the Rockwell RV Park about 4:30.  I drove the Jeep over to the shop on Reno where we were scheduled to have the Allison Transmission on the motor home serviced the next morning.  We got the Transmission serviced, $468, and pulled into our pad at Cushing by 2:30pm.

That’s where we’ve been since then.  I went over to my brother Bill’s house a couple of days to help him install a cabinet with shelves in his motor home bathroom and also to install his tire pressure monitor on the motor home.  Other than that we have had grandkids stay some on the weekends and we have gone to Perkins to see Twila’s daughter Terri and my Nephew Mike and their kids.  I will try to post another entry after we go to our Good Sam Chapter Campout this weekend.  We are planning on leaving for Lake Heyburn Wednesday morning.  I have also been instructed by my Grandson Austin that I need to say something nice about him in my blog.  He is going to be 16 on the 18th of April so we will be back from the campout that evening.  He told me that if I didn’t say something nice he would tell everyone he knew three prostitutes that would say bad things about me.  I told him I had lived a lot longer than him and everyone knew how nice I am and that I was shocked that he knew three prostitutes.  He didn’t think that was nearly as funny as I did.  All things considered, he is an exceptional kid.  He will be a junior next year but could actually graduate by December of 2010.  He is going to be going to OSU and taking college classes but still plans to graduate with his class in Yale, Oklahoma.  I will have to get a picture of him for the blog.  I still haven’t seen my other grandson Ben.  He lives in Tulsa.  Well I’m just rambling so I will quit for now.