Tag Archives: Albertson’s

2013_07_14 (Sun) Housekeeping Chores

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We have had an exciting but fairly intense week, including our ‘grand auto tour’ of the northern Wyoming Bighorn Mountains, so we had decided in advance that today would be a low key, stay at home day for us.  Besides, there are some things that living in an RV does not change.  At the top of the list (for us at least) are grocery shopping, doing laundry, and paying bills.  (Some RVers avoid grocery shopping by eating all of their meals out.  They usually have the largest, fanciest kitchens.)  Tank dumping is not to be overlooked, of course, and we tend to throw that into the mix on a chore day if we are stationary for a while, such as we are at the moment.  Taking care of our website/blog has become a daily task, but does not rise to the level of a chore as it is in no way necessary.

We had two rigs and three members of our team leave this morning.  Steve, our intrepid co-leader, told the team on day 1 that he had a long-standing family obligation the second week of the build and would be leaving us.  Bruce and Pam also had to leave unexpectedly as they got a call on Friday that their daughter, who has Multiple Sclerosis, had taken a turn for the worse.  Every member of a team quickly becomes a unique piece of a puzzle, and the premature departure of these three leaves a hole that is felt as a genuine loss.  Steve had made us feel welcome in a group where we might not have automatically fit in and worked with both of us at the job site.  I had the pleasure of working closely with Bruce on some trickier aspects of the build and appreciated his knowledge, skill, and patience.  We had a chance to say our “so long for now”s to Steve last night, but we did not get a chance to say goodbye to Bruce and Pam.

Our driver-side neighbors, Marvin, Leo, and their families, pulled out mid-morning.  They had helped us early last week deal with our awnings when the wind suddenly came up very strong.  By early afternoon there were quite a few vacant sites.  We went to get groceries, but took a few minutes to first find and drive through Kendrick Park.  On our way to Albertson’s we passed the Safeway so we stopped there instead.  The store was nice enough but smaller, and their selection was not as extensive as Albertson’s, which has become our preferred grocery store out here.

In the course of the afternoon new campers arrived including a RoadTrek Class B that pulled in to the site on our driver’s side.  They had just come from Cody via US-14 and were heading on to Gillette and then Sundance and Devil’s Tower, the opposite of what we have done the last four weeks.

We had our 4:30 PM SKP social, although it started a little later and was a bit smaller, with just me, Linda, Jack, Shirley, Kent, and Jan.  Kathy, Mara, and Leota returned from shopping and other adventures, and Kathy and Mara joined the social until we all went home to have dinner.  We compared notes about our program selling efforts the previous evening at the Sheridan Wyo Rodeo.  Linda and I sold $201 dollars but Kathy and Mara sold $500, so they covered the Rodeo’s donation to the local HFH affiliate all by themselves.  Good job.

After dinner we turned the TV on for the first time since we arrived in Sheridan a week ago as Linda wanted to watch Masterpiece Theater.  We scanned for OTA signals with the antenna pointed in three different directions and finally found the local Wyoming PBS station, and most of the others, on the 3rd try.  I watched out of the corner of my eye while I worked on uploading blog posts.

 

2013_07_08 (Mon) A Day To Get Ready

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The historic Sheridan Inn.

The historic Sheridan Inn.

Our nominal HFH work schedule is Tuesday through Saturday, so we had today available to do whatever we wanted/needed to do.  The Sheridan visitor center is close by so we went there early to get information and a walking tour map of downtown.  Sheridan has more than 50 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, many from the late 1800’s to early 1900’s.

Buffalo Bill Cody hung out here and interviewed acts for his Wild West show on the porch.

Buffalo Bill Cody hung out here and interviewed acts for his Wild West show on the porch.

Just coincidently, the Sheridan WYO Rodeo is taking place this week (it’s a big deal), so there is a lot of signage and commerce related to that.  Accommodations are hard come by, and a bit pricier, in the area because of the rodeo.  Fortunately our spots at Peter D’s were pre-arranged far in advance and at a slight discount.  We were asked to contribute $20/day towards the $32 cost of our site, and the local HFH affiliate picked up the difference.

Our walking tour done, we found the local Albertson’s grocery store using the Point Of Interest feature on our Garmin 465T GPS.  (This is the GPS we use in the car.  We can use it as a handheld unit, but we rarely do.  We have a DeLorme handheld GPS that we use for hiking and geocaching.  We use a Rand-McNally RV GPS in the motorhome.)

The Mint Bar. "Meet me at the Mint" is what the locals say. Lots of bars in town, not too many wine stores/

The Mint Bar. “Meet me at the Mint” is what the locals say. Lots of bars in town, not too many wine stores.

Besides a few grocery items, we were looking for some wine.  The Albertson’s in Gillette had a separate, attached store, but the one in Sheridan did not sell beer, wine, or liquor.  In this county you can only buy alcoholic beverages at a “liquor store.”  There was a small one a few doors down from Albertson’s, so we went there.

Back at the rig I continued working on my blog posts until it was time to go to the 4:30 PM social at Steven Gullette’s trailer.  A glass of wine and finger snacks with our new(est) friends; RVing is a good life.

For dinner, Linda made a flatbread pizza with caramelized onions, peppers, olives, kale, mushrooms, garlic, and a touch of balsamic vinegar.  There were severe storms in the area that we were tracking using several weather apps on our smartphones, but none that appeared to be a concern for us.  Before she got the pizza in the oven, the wind came up very suddenly and flipped up the front arm on our large driver-side awning.  We scrambled outside to retrieve the ladder and poles needed to stow the awnings, and were assisted by Marvin and Leo from the motorhome just to our west.  Linda hung on to the patio awning strap (barely) while we got the driver-side awning straightened out and stowed.  We then ganged up on the patio awning and got it stowed.  I then stowed the two small awnings.  The wind in Wyoming is constant and can get very strong very suddenly.  Hot, bright sunshine notwithstanding, we may just leave our awnings up for the duration of our visit.

The potential crisis averted, Linda finished assembling the pizza and baked it using the convection bake feature of the microwave oven.  She bought a flexible silicone baking disk at Escapade and has been using it to great success.  The pizza was fabulous; another example of how she is developing the ability to improvise dishes based on ingredients (G-BOMBS) that are the staples of our way of eating (WFPB).  (Greens, Beans, Onions, Mushrooms, Berries, and Seeds.  We also let G stand for Grains.)

It was still light after dinner, so we went for a ride to locate the two build sites and see a bit more of Sheridan.  We found the county fairgrounds where the Sheridan Wyo Rodeo will take place and saw a magnificent sunset from there. We also found Kendrick Park, which has a wild animal section with Bison and Elk, but couldn’t find the entrance.  The Kendrick family was prominent in the founding and development of Sheridan, and a number of buildings in town bear the “K” which was their mark.

 

2013_06_22 (Sat) FMCA Day 4

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If it rained overnight we were unaware of it.  We awoke to gray, overcast skies, our 3rd day in a row of such conditions.  As patches of blue started to appear it also started to rain lightly, and the darker gray clouds moving in from the west seemed to suggest more to come.  Blue skies and rain seem to be another one of those “western” things we don’t see too often in Michigan.

Before we went to sleep last night we studied the program offerings for today and did not see much of interest to us.  Nicer weather might have led to some work on the coach, but we decided to take one more stroll through the inside vendors and just hang out waiting for Marty Stuart’s evening concert.

We picked up another LED spotlight bulb from Jirah for the other bedroom reading light.  These are the first bulbs we have found with necks that are long enough to fit in the aircraft-style swivel down lights.  We were given two “Bonus Bucks” coupons by someone at the FMCA booth each good for $5 off the price of anything for sale in the vendor area.  Linda found an FMCA T-shirt for $12 and bought it for $2.  We picked up three roles of Rescue Tape, a non-adhesive tape that can be used to make temporary repairs on almost anything, including fuel lines, hydraulic lines, air lines, and electrical connections.  We also bought a bottle of RV Digest-It from Unique Products, as we were running out of the Thetford Eco-Smart enzyme product.  Their natural formulation products are available nationwide and their product line includes products for treating septic systems.

We also had a good discussion with the factory representative from Winegard antenna.  We had been looking at Winegard’s ANSER and CARRYOUT portable antennas as well as the ViewCube and Tailgater (Dish Network) but decided to defer any decisions until we get home as we need to set up satellite TV there too.

While perusing the vendors we ran into Pat & Vickie Lintner again (from our GLCC chapter) and had a nice long chat.  They have used Direct TV for years, both at home and in their RV, and are quite satisfied with it.  We are leaning towards Dish Network as they appear to be more RV friendly, at least in terms of how they package/price their system, but this is not the prevailing opinion of the RVers we have talked to.

We also stopped at C & C Marketing to talk to Chris Yust about an insurance quote.  At the fall 2010 Gypsy Journal Rally in Celina, OH she was not able to write policies for Michigan residents, but expanded their market to include Michigan in 2011.  We are currently insured with National Interstate of Hawaii (which we are not happy about after Nick & Terry Russell’s very negative experience with them) through Miller Insurance (Cheryl Howarth) out of Oregon (with whom we are quite pleased).  Our insurance renews in September, so it was a good time to get a quote from Chris.

Done with our RV shopping, we decided to go to the grocery store.  Our GPS brought up a list and we selected a nearby Albertson’s, a western chain that we do not have in the Great Lakes region.  As we were leaving the store we noticed a long N-S line of very ominous (not to be confused with omnibus) looking dark clouds.  By the time we got back to our coach it had started raining.  Shortly thereafter the storm blew in full force with 60 MPH winds, torrential horizontal rain, and pea size hail.  We scrambled to close and latch all of the windows, but had two awnings out that we could not put in until the storm let up.  Fortunately they were a small and medium window awing, and not the large patio awning.  I waited until the storm let up a bit, and then went out in the wind, rain, and hail and put the two awnings up.  Hey, it’s all part of the full/extended-time RV experience.  When the weather turns suddenly bad, there is often no place to hide, and no time to get there even if there is.  Linda checked the weather on her smartphone, which revealed a line of very strong storms moving through northeast Wyoming.  We had obviously been hit by one of the severe thunderstorm cells.  We were also under a tornado watch for three hours.

We knew we still had some minor leaks in the coach around windshields and windows.  Most of them reappeared but were manageable.  We also discovered a small drip at the outside front corner of the passenger side front skylight.  We have had a drip there before, and thought it was taken care of when we replaced the dome on the Fan-tastic vent fan, which was crazed and cracked.  I recalled that when replacing the dome it did not seal around the edges of the housing like I thought it should, so it’s possible that water was pooling &/or splashing up under the lip. But that is all speculation until we can inspect it and figure out what’s going on.

Once the storm let up we went looking for our two cats.  Juniper emerged rather quickly, but Jasper was nowhere to be seen.  He likes to hide when he’s uncomfortable with a situation, and his favorite spot in the coach is under the dinette, although it is not a particularly good place for him to be.  We thought we had that area sealed off, but when Juniper started sniffing intently around there we figured that was where he hid.  And sure enough, he had!  At this point we have no idea how he got in there, as we thought we had all points of entry sealed.

The rain and wind eventually quit and I went out to check for damage.  The bus is parked facing due west and the storm came from that direction.  The windshields and front cap were undamaged, and the head of the searchlight was still attached to the base.  Inspection for roof damage would have to wait for safer conditions.

Although we did not do much this afternoon, it was not a relaxing one.  BTW: With the passage of the storm, the temperature at 5:00 PM had dropped to 46 degrees F!

After dinner we went over to the Central Pavilion (indoors) for the Marty Stuart concert, which was moved there from the Morningside Park grandstand (outside) due to the weather.  Because the grounds had become quite muddy we finally used the trams.  In spite of a number of coaches leaving early, and the generally disagreeable weather, the concert was well attended and appreciated by the audience, to the point that the band came back to do an encore and stuck around to sell CDs and sign autographs.  Although we are not fans of country music, Marty and his group were very good, with a high level of musicianship.  They did a range of music from bluegrass to traditional county, contemporary country, and gospel.  They did a mix of vocals with tight harmonies, and intricate instrumentals. Marty performed years ago with Johnny Cash, and has a similar “sound.”  They put a lot of energy into their show and they seemed to genuinely enjoy what they were doing, which was then reflected by the crowd.

BTW: The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) Field Day event started at 2 PM EDT today, and runs for 24 hours.  We did not bring our HF equipment, and we have been too preoccupied to even turn on the 2 M handi-talkie.  I did wear my 2011 ARRL Field Day shirt, however, in recognition of event.

Yesterday was also my dad’s birthday but I didn’t have a chance to call him, so I did that today.  He turned 88.