January 27, 2012

01/23/12

Good Morning All!

It's been pretty quiet here at Hidden Valley since I last posted to our blog.

On Friday evening we went out for supper at Agave's Mexican Restaurant with Peter and Linda Crawford who live four hours north of Spokane, WA in Keslo, British Columbia.  So far they have travelled over 10,000 miles this winter and have a lot more to do before retuning home.  That's a lot of traveling folks.

After dinner there was a get-together here in the park with a great bonfire and some very lively conversation.  We met new full-timer's, Tom and Sheree Kennedy from Albuquerque, New Mexico.  They will be hosting at Bullards Beach, South Beach and Valley of the Rouge State Parks in Oregon this spring and summer.

On Saturday, while Joyce was covering for Terri in the office so she could go to church, I decided to wash the rig.  It took me several hours to do the roof and the rest of the trailer but it really looks nice, especially when I got the bugs and road film off of the front cap.  Next step is to treat the roof with UV coating.

Yesterday we finally upgraded our Directv service to high-definition.  We actually started the process a couple of weeks ago with my first call to Directv.  They offered us an upgrade for free plus all the movie and sports channels for $92 a month for three months.  After that our bill goes up to $114 if we decide to keep the additional channels. So, in addition to that we still have the national feed to PBS, out distant network feeds (Los Angeles and New York City channels) and several others.  Not a bad deal.

Two days later the installer shows up, takes one look at our Winegard satellite dish on our roof and declares that we can't do this upgrade.  But, he was going to give it the old college try anyway but after two hours, six phone calls and a lot of trial and error, he finally gave up and said we'd have to take the rig to a Winegard dealer to do the upgrade.  By-the-way, the closest one is in New Braunfels!

After talking to Winegard tech support (who acutally know more about Directv than Directv does), the dealer in New Braunfels and DirectV customer care, we finally got 'er done.  If we had them just put up a tripod with a dish and not go through the Winegard dish, all of this would have been easy.  But, we didn't spend $1500 on an automatic dish not to use it!

Fortunately, the installer who finally got the job done was much more knowledgeable and persistent.

After getting out TV upgraded, we went to see Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close staring Thomas Horn, Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock.  Not bad but a little boring in places.

01/24/12

Yesterday afternoon we had Jerry and Connie from Festus, MO arrived at Hidden Vally from Mission, TX.  After they got unhooked, Joyce and I joined them for supper at Agave's.

01/25/12

Yesterday afternoon the welder who modified the receiver on the back of our rig came by to do the reinstallation.  Although the Swivel Wheel won't put very much weight on the back of our trailer, the receiver needed to be at least a Class III.  Now all we have to do is wait for a call from the Swivel Wheel folks to say that our's is ready for pickup.

I've been up off and on since 2 AM this morning.  We have been getting some really powerful thunderstorms moving through Bexar County with heavy rain, some pea-size hail, a lot of lightening and wind.  Some parts of the county got over six inches of rain and with the wind, there are some power outages.  We even had a tornado watch in effect until 5 AM.  The weather guesser's are forecasting more of the same today but it looks like the worst is by us...hopefully.

My nephew and his wife who live in Springfield, MO are having a baby soon so Joyce made a blanket and a stuffed dinosaur for the new one.  here are a couple of pictures of here creation:

01/27/12

This morning we were up early for Hidden Valley version of the annual Cowboy Breakfast that is held at Cowboys Dance Hall.  This is a huge event that kick's off the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo.  Our's was much more laid back and tame but fun just the same.

Terri made several dishes including biscuits and gravy, eggs, a Cowboy Bake and all the fix-in's for breakfast tacos.  Jackie, one of the ladies who lives here in the park brought Maple and Bacon French Toast cupcakes that were "to die for" delicious.  I think I gained five pounds just smelling them.

More later.

Barry & Joyce