I won’t ever do it again

We have had Angel and Justin since Wednesday night.  They are grandkids and no that isn’t what I won’t do again.  Even if I said we weren’t going to do it again, which I’m not since I love them, I wouldn’t be married anymore if I did.  Anyway, we took them to Silver Dollar City Thursday evening and if you go after 3pm you can come back the next day for free.  Yesterday, we went back for the free day and Angel talked me into riding the “Powder Keg” with her.  Yes, that’s what I won’t ever do again.  The Powder Keg is a roller coaster from …, well you know.  The only thing I can say good about it is “it is smooth”.  It starts you out by accelerating from 0 to 145,000 miles per hour in about a half a second.  I don’t know how they do that but they do and then it goes over the first hump that is designed to wrap your feet up over your ears and I’m sure it would if they didn’t have you strapped in.  It does a series of twists and turns that I guess are designed to train a new generation of fighter pilots.  The good news is it doesn’t take long to get back to where you started.  Now you have to understand all this is taking place with this 4th grade girl holding her arms in the air while I am trying to permanently deform the bar holding me in this death trap.  She is yelling for me to hold my arms up and I am telling her there is no way that’s going to happen!!!  It is really designed to make a 6 foot 2 inch man feel like a wimp!  The only good thing is that Justin says he’s not riding it, OK so I’m trying to use a 4th grade boy to make me look good and yes I know it isn’t working.

Later in the day Angel try’s to get me to ride the “Wild Fire”.  This is another roller coaster that does 5 loops.  I may have cried a little in my embarrassment but I didn’t do it and then to put the icing on the cake, Justin did.  They must have ridden it about 4 times in a row and then, yeh you guessed it they went back to the Powder Keg and Justin road it and wanted to do it again.  Luckily the park was closing so I was able to slink off towards the car.

But enough of the un-pleasantries.  We went out to lunch on Wednesday the 20th to celebrate the 54th wedding anniversary of our good friends Clarence and Virginia Byrom.  When they had their 50th anniversary I gave Virginia a pin that said “I must be a Saint” and now she has up and made 4 more years.  Can’t you just tell by looking at him how hard that must be?  That’s Jack and Barbara Miller in the background and of course my darling wife, Twila.  Hope that got me some points.

All kidding aside, you have to do something right to make it that many years.  We wish them many more.

Still at Branson

I didn’t mention last time that our good friends Jack and Barbara Miller are also here.  They are also members of our Good Sam chapter in Oklahoma.  They got here on Sunday the 10th.  We have been playing cards every night and running around during the day.  We went to Silver Dollar City one day, this was a dry run in preparation for grandson Justin and granddaughter Angel coming up next week for their Fall break.  Jack and Barbara’s grandchildren, Cole and Ali are coming at the same time.

We went to the Tanager's Outlet Mall and I took a picture to show how much some the trees have already turned.

We also played miniature golf last night here at Treasure Lake.  Jack turned out to be the winner but I don’t think any of us are a threat to “Tiger”.

For those that don’t know, there is no charge to play miniature golf at Treasure Lake, in fact they furnish the putter, balls, and a score card.  They also have a free indoor and outdoor swimming pool.

This evening we are going down to Branson Landing.  This is a shopping area with lots of restaurants and a water show that has several nozzles and works in rhythm with music.  At night they add colored lights to the show.  Again no charge.  I heard it cost a million dollars to install.  It’s as good as anything I have seen in Las Vegas.

Branson, Missouri

Yes it’s tough duty but someone has to do it.  We went to our Good Sam chapter campout last Wednesday the 6th at Lake Heyburn just west of Kellyville, Oklahoma and stayed till Sunday afternoon.  As usual we had a great time visiting with everyone.  Since we will be leaving for Texas on the 13 of November we won’t see some of them until next spring.  We left Sunday and drove up I-44 to the Coach light RV Park just Northeast of Joplin, Missouri on highway 71 North.  We stayed the night and then drove on up to Treasure Lake RV in Branson on Monday.  We plan on being here until Sunday morning the 24th.

I know most of the people that read my blog know about Treasure Lake but in case there are any that don’t, I will explain a little about it.  Treasure lake is a membership owned RV Park.  You pay a one time fee of about $1000 to $1200 for a deed to a portion of the ownership of the park and then $180 a year for maintains fees.  You are then able to stay for 3 weeks at a time for only $5 a night with full hook ups.  There are no limits as to how many 3 week stays you can have a year as long as you are out of the park for 1 week in between stays.  The amazing thing is that you don’t even know you are in Branson.  You can’t see or even hear Branson.  Their are 4 different camping areas and I think somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 sites.  We have never had a problem getting a site.  I took a few pictures of the area around our motor home to show how pretty it is here.

 

Motor Home Steps

Well I got it done.  It wasn’t easy but it was doable.  Here’s what I did, it wasn’t rocket science but it did take a lot of doing.  I took the old steps over to my nephew’s house in Perkins, Oklahoma.  He, Mike Prough, has been a welder and is presently an inspector over the manufacture of storage tanks in Cushing, Oklahoma.  He has a pretty good metal working shop in his garage.  He cut out a rectangle in the mounting surface of the old steps using his grinder and a cut off wheel.

Then he cut off all the lower steps.

He also made me some plates with a 1/2 inch hole drilled in them and a 3/8 inch nut tack welded to them.

With these I came back to the motor home and bolted the frame (second picture)to the motor home using the plates with the nuts on top.

Now it was time to take the motor home over to Mike, where he was able to reach up through the frame and weld the little plates to the motor home.

Now all that was left was to take the old frame down and install the new steps which is all I wanted to do in the first place.

All this because Gulf Stream didn’t have any backup on the nuts.  Of course they didn’t need any, since all they did was start the nuts and then put the old impact wrench on and tighten them down.  No problem since they didn’t have to take them off.  This is what the frame that the steps bolted to looked like when I finally got the steps off.

you will notice that they had taken a cutting torch and notched out the frame.  This is not what I would call good craftsmanship.