Our Wander Years

Jett’s American ancestors, 2018 update

Posted on December 18, 2018 by Sparky

I have gone through Jett’s Ancestry tree, reviewing new hints, correcting some errors and adding a few newly-discovered ancestors – specifically the ancestors of Mehitable Williams (a 6th great-grandmother). In the course of reviewing these new hints i discovered some new things:

She has several new direct links to Plantagenet royalty (specifically Edward III).
She is a distant cousin to both Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher (they were siblings).
One of Abraham Lincoln’s 6th great-grandfathers is one of Jett’s 10th great-grandfathers, making her a distant cousin to Old Abe.
Another 10th great-grandfather, Thomas Macy, was one of the 10 original owners of Nantucket Island.

The total number of documented American ancestors in her family tree is now 549. Pretty deep roots.

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First footers, of a sort

Posted on December 17, 2018 by Sparky

The empty sites to the north

It is not yet The Season in southwest Florida – that starts Jan 1 – so the park is still only about one-third occupied. The 3 sites to our north are all empty and the neighbor to our south has gone away for the holidays, leaving us feeling a little lonely and isolated. So it is a good time to make an effort to meet people who are in the same situation.

To that end we invited a couple of near neighbors – the couple across the street and the couple four sites to the north – to our place for drinks and appetizers. We could have just offered appetizers because they brought their own drinks. But their presence made them “first footers” of a sort. Technically a first footer is the first visitor to enter a new dwelling. Well, they didn’t actually enter our RV and even if they had they wouldn’t have have been the first. But they were the first visitors to set foot on our site, so I think they qualify.

It was a good time. And it felt good to make some new friends. It has been a while since we have done that. We didn’t make any real friends over the summer as Lamb City was a weekend/family kind of place. But as residents who are committed to staying at least 3 years, we hppe to make some good lnng-term friends here.

First footers are a start.

Jett preparing for the guests

The sumptuous spread

Categories: FL, Places, RV Living | Leave a comment

Painting the steps

Posted on December 12, 2018 by Sparky

Painted/unpainted steps

It is hard for me to believe, but our “new” RV is now nearly 4 years old. It has traveled across the country and between New England and Florida several times. It has reached the point where certain things – like the roof and the slides – need attention. The steps, too.

I noticed that the steps were looking a bit worn and were starting to show some rust. They needed a new coat of paint. Easier said than done as they are the only means of access to and egress from our living space. So the steps had to be painted in… steps. One step a day for four days. And because the paint required a minimum of 3 hours to dry, I had to plan to paint when no one – no even Rusty – needed to use them for at least 3 hours. So I painted a step after I took Rusty for his afternoon walk and it would be dry enough for him to step on it by the time his evening walk came around. I continued to step over the painted step, giving it all night to dry. The plan worked well. I now have a set of steps that look nearly new.

The photo shows two steps – the top one painted, the bottom one unpainted. Big difference.

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The Red Sox spring training ticket fiasco

Posted on December 4, 2018 by Sparky

In line at JetBlue Park

Two of my oldest and best friends are coming to Fort Myers in March, to attend, for the first time, some Red Sox spring training games. Being a resident of Fort Myers and experienced at getting spring training tickets, I volunteered to get some for all three of us. Two games at JetBlue Park – the home field for the Red Sox in Florida – and one at CenturyLink Park, the Twins home field. Easy-peasy.

So, at 9:30 am on Saturday Dec 1 I was on my laptop, logged into the mlb.com site, ready to jump the moment the tickets went on sale at 10 am. I had my tickets selected – box seats for both games, one on the first base side and one on the third base side.

When the clock struck 10 I pounced. And was immediately disappointed. No box seats were available! Where did they go? After several tries in different seating sections I opted for he “best seats available”… and was offered seats high in the grandstand. Where the heck were the good seats?

Increasingly desperate, I accepted the “best seats” and went to check out. Bad turned to worse as the website refused to accept my credit card payment. The message was “address must match credit card.” I tried two different cards and triple-checked the address each time. Rejected each time. I was cursing a blue streak.

It was now 10:30 am and I had been completely thwarted in my attempts to secure spring training tickes. I texted my buddy Mike in MA and told him I was having trouble online. I asked him to try the website while I headed over to JetBlue to stand in line.

When I got to JetBlue I was initially relieved. Only one person at each ticket window and a small group milling around a bit further away. I picked a window… and was immediately confronted by a Red Sox staffer who asked me what the heck I was doing. Dumb question. “Buying tickets.” “Well, then, get in line.” He pointed into the distance. I turned the corner and saw that the “small group milling around” was actually the head of a very long line snaking under the stadium. Probably about 300 people in line.

I waited. Not very patiently. I struck up conversations with the people near me and they, too, had stories of difficulties buying tickets online.

I got to the ticket window at 12:50 pm. Just about 2 hours in line. While waiting Mike had been able to secure tickets for the 3/19 game but had struck out on 3/16, He tried several alternate sites – e.g., StubHub – but was appalled at the prices being charged. He had a line on some $80 tickets by the time I reached the window but I told him to hold off until I saw what was available at the box office. I ended up getting some decent grandstand tickets for 3/17 for $35 each. Success.

Got the tickets, but felt like I had been run over by a steamroller. It really shouldn’t be this difficult.

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Enter the Corolla

Posted on December 3, 2018 by Sparky

Our “new” 2017 Corolla

We knew that we had to get a small car when we got to Fort Myers. Jett continues to refuse to drive the GMC dually and, truth be told, I wouldn’t be comfortable with her behind the wheel of The Beast. So our choice was to either get a “winter rat” – a cheap (under $5,000) car that we would sell at the end of the season – or a better car (under $15000) that we would keep for at least 3 years and would transport to and from New England. Actually, the transport decision is not cast in concrete as we could, conceivably, leave the car in storage in Florida and buy a “summer rat” for use in New England, as we did last year. But that would mean paying insurance on *3* cars and probably tying down the car we leave in Florida. But it would save the cost of transporting it. Another decision for another day.

I looked at some cheap cars and found some that would probably serve, but none as nice as the $4,000 Ford Focus we had this summer. And Jett was strongly in favor of getting a car with more than a 90-day warranty. So we went back to the Toyota AutoNation lot where we bought the Yaris in 2012 to see what they had to offer for under $15,000. The pickings were slim and the choice really came down to which 2017 Corolla was best. The only features that were required were cruise control and a CD player and all 3 had those. We opted for the slate gray one because of the low miles (about 41,000) and the cleanliness of the interior.

With tax, registration and an optional extended warranty, the final price was nearly $17,000. More than I was planning to spend, but acceptable. Within 2 hours we had our winter rat, which was nice enough that we can’t call it that.

We couldn’t actually take it home with us that night because it was dark by the time we finished the paperwork (Jett doesn’t drive after dark), but we got it the next day.

Categories: FL, Places, RV Living | Leave a comment

“Never Go Back” by Lee Child

Posted on November 25, 2018 by Sparky

This is one of Lee Child’s popular mystery/adventure books featuring Jack Reacher. Reacher, for those of you who aren’t familiar with him, is a former MP standing 6′ 5″ and weighing 250 pounds. I mention his size only to remind those who think “Tom Cruise” when they hear “Jack Reacher.” The casting director who decided that an actor who stands 5′ 7″ and weighs in at about 150 pounds was the right choice for playing Reacher is either an idiot or took a sizable bribe.

I mention this miscasting because one of the more vivid scenes in Never Go Back is Jack Reacher, sharing a tiny bathroom aboard a transcontinental flight with a US Army soldier and, in those close confines, breaking both of the soldier’s elbows. I don’t know how the director of the movie is going to make that scene plausible. Tom Cruise would have a hard time breaking a wishbone at Thanksgiving, much less a soldier’s elbows.

Actually, the scene is pretty implausible in the book, too. Try to imagine a soldier having both elbows brutally snapped then meekly returning to his middle seat to sit quietly for 3 hours until the plane lands. This is after Reacher breaks four fingers on another soldier on the plane, who also endures the excruciating pain without a peep. Both incidents of mayhem occur without any passengers noticing. Not plausible.

But great fun. I finished this book in under a week, which is the fastest read that I have had in some time.

The thumbnail plot is that Reacher, a drifter by profession, hitchhikes to Virginia to meet the CO of the 110th MP corps, a unit he commanded when he was still employed by Uncle Sam. The reason he traveled for over a week to get there? He wanted to take her out to dinner because she had a nice voice.

As a retired man I understand doing stupid stuff for no good reason, so I can’t fault him for going to Virginia. But when he gets there he finds that she has been arrested for embezzlement and he himself is visited by a couple of Army thugs who warn him to leave town or face arrest on a 16-year-old manslaughter charge and a paternity suit. Reacher, never one to run, decides to stick around to see what the heck is going on. Soon a third charge is added: attempted murder on the jailed woman’s attorney. Reacher is thrown into jail, too. The same jail where the cute CO, Susan, is cooling her heels.

He concocts a scheme to break both of them out of jail. It succeeds, of course, and the rest of the book has Jack and Susan traveling across the country, dodging people who want to arrest and/or harm them. They gather clues along the way. Eventually Jack meets his purported daughter and they solve the mystery, while screwing their brains out at every opportunity.

Fun on the run.

And fun to read.

8 out of 10.

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“The Closers” by Michael Connelly

Posted on November 18, 2018 by Sparky

I had already decided to give this book high marks before learning that it had reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list when it was first published in 2005. It has an intricate plot that kept me guessing until the very end and resolved in a very satisfactory – and very plausible – way. Too often a book I enjoy has ridiculous coincidences or loose ends that are left hanging. None of that here.

This is one of Connelly’s Harry Bosch mysteries. In this one he has returned to the LAPD after several years of retirement. He is assigned to the Open-Unsolved unit and, as his first assignment, is handed a 17-year-old murder of a teen girl. It is a classic “cold case.” So much so that at one point in the book he is approached by writers from the Cold Case TV series for an interview. The reason the case popped to the top of the cold case stack was a new DNA match of blood found on the murder weapon to a man previously unassociated with the case. It isn’t giving much away to tell you that the man whose blood is on the gun is not the killer (how boring would that be?) but his identity is a thread that, when unraveled, reveals the killer and the complex circumstances that surrounded the murder.

There are only two deaths in the book (not counting the old murder), so those looking for a huge body count will have to look elsewhere. But they are both surprising, unexpected deaths and are, in their own way, very satisfying.

A very fine book.

9 out of 10.

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The printed blog, 2011 and 2012

Posted on November 12, 2018 by Sparky

First 2 volumes

I have taken delivery of the first two volumes of the printed blog (2011 and 2012) and I have to say that I am thrilled with the result. It has been a lot of work – particularly 2012 which was 184 pages – but worth every minute. It will be a keepsake for us and anyone who cares about our travels (siblings and children, mostly). The books were not cheap. In quantities of 10 they worked out to nearly $6 and $24 per copy, respectively.

I used staples for the 2011 volume because it was just 28 pages, but chose the spiral binding for the larger 2012 volume. I think that was an excellent decision as it reduces wear-and-tear on the binding when being read. That should improve the longevity of the booklet. I will use spiral binding for any additional volumes of more that 50 pages.

I was also thrilled both with the quality of the paper (70# silk finish) and the cover (100# silk finish). The vivid colors in the photographs and the overall clarity of the images were also more than satisfactory.

Example of high-quality images

My printer is printi.com, in case you were thinking of doing a similar thing. Highly recommended.

2013 is at the printer now.

Categories: Books, RV Living | Leave a comment

Netflix

Posted on November 11, 2018 by Sparky

Netflix on our TV!

An unexpected boon of our new status as owners at Cypress Trail RV Resort is free internet. I had planned on finding out how to get hard-wired internet access while in residence, but was surprised to be handed a modem when we arrived at the gate. Free hard-wired internet! Woo hoo!

The main reason for wanting a hard-wired internet connection was to gain access to Netflix. Of course we could have signed up at any time, but we were always bumping up against our Verizon data plan limit (yeah, yeah, we have an “unlimited” plan but the fact is that the speed goes to crap after 15GB or about 4 movies). With a hard-wired internet we can, for $11 per month, have access to all that Netflix offers.

So much of yesterday was spent trying to get the internet connection operational, creating a Netflix account and trying to get the TVs configured to access Netflix. All of these were harder than they should have been, but easier than they would have been a few years back.

The most surprising part of configuring the NetGear modem was that I couldn’t do it using my laptop; I had to use my phone. Yes, the world has come to the point where a smart phone is more useful than a laptop computer. The most frustrating part was that, once configured, the modem was able to upload but was unable to download. A modem that can’t download is pretty darn useless. So I did what any intelligent person would do: I rebooted the modem a few times and jiggled some wires. And suddenly, for no good reason, it started downloading.

Signing up for Netflix was easy, but I was surprised that I could create a “profile” for both me and Jett. I was able to tell Netflix what kind of viewing I like (but, darn, “porn” wasn’t an option). I guess they offer stuff based on what I tell them I like and, presumably, on what I actually watch.

But I couldn’t do the same for Jett, even though she had a separate profile. Puzzling.

The hardest part was figuring out how to actually watch Netflix on our televisions. When we replaced our main TV a year ago I recall that I specifically looked for one with WiFi connectivity. I needn’t have bothered because it is much better to connect to Netflix using our Blu-Ray DVD players. The advantage of that is that the remote DVD controls all work for Netflix. Watching a movie on Netflix is exactly like watching a Blu-Ray DVD.

Jett hasn’t used Netflix yet, but she is going to love it.

Who knows, maybe she will love it so much that we will stay in Florida an extra month or two.

Categories: Commentary, RV Living | Leave a comment

TS4 wrapup

Posted on November 10, 2018 by Sparky

TS4 was a trip to forget. Yes, there were some good things about it but they were overwhelmed by the bad things: two complete breakdowns of the truck and extensive repairs to the RV costing over $5,000. A very expensive, very stressful trip.

The trip was done in two segments. The segments themselves were meaningless and existed only to enable Google maps to handle the points in the route (it has a limit of 10 points). But it gives me a good way to do a side-by-side comparison of the plan versus the actual.

Segment 1

TS4-1 Plan

The main event in this segment? No question: the breakdown near Greene NY on NY 206 and the unplanned 8-night stay at Chenango Shores Campground. We should be grateful that we were able to get to a campground at all as it was the only one still open in the region. But we had no cell phone service, no sewer hookup, almost no internet service and were surrounded by very old trailers in various stages of decomposition. And we sank deeper into the mud every day we were there. The few people we met were nice, but that doesn’t fully counterbalance the pure misery of our existence. We rented a car and so were not immobile, but the general miserableness of the situation made it one of the worst weeks in our 6 years of travel.

Due to the unplanned stop in Chenango Shores we had to cancel our planned stays in the Finger Lakes region and the trip to the Flight 93 memorial in Shanksburg PA. Deposits were lost in both places.

TS4-1 Actual

And we almost capsized the rig – the closest we have ever come to a true disaster on the road – due to a brake controller problem that cost more to diagnose than to fix. But coming on top of the engine problems, it had a “straw that broke the camel’s back” feel. I was grateful that the obvious RV damage was relatively light, but I believed that we had ruptured a gray water tank. This compounded our misery as it meant that we could not use the kitchen or half-bath sinks while at Chenango Shores. It also meant that we had to find a way to repair the damage before we continued on to Florida. We were fortunate to find ACE RV Repair in Herndon VA and they did an outstanding job of both repairing the damage (which turned out to have less to do with our near-capsizing event and more to do with old roof damage that I had not noticed). We were able to stay at Jett’s sons’ place in Alexandria which saved us the cost of a hotel, and did not lose any additional days on the schedule due to the alacrity with which ACE worked.

We had to cancel all of the Segment 1 reservations when we got stuck in Chenango Shores and when we tried to rebook Mama Gertie’s near Asheville, they had no room. We found a spot at the Asheville East KOA.

The highlights of Segment 1? The kindness and assistance of Butch and Jackie when we broke down near Greene. The Prince William Forest Campground turned out to be much better than expected. The time in Albany was nice – particularly the day I spent in the graveyards. Finding ACE RV Repair turned out to be a very positive thing. Other than that… mostly bad things. Bad breakdowns, bad restaurants, bad weather.

Segment 2

The second truck breakdown started on the long haul uphill into Asheville at the conclusion of Segment 1 – the engine suddenly started “whooshing,” emitting a loud roar of air being taken in or expelled. I tried to fix it in Asheville but 3 mechanics who looked at it could find nothing wrong and, truth be told, the truck seemed to be operating just fine. But on the first hop of Segment 2 I noticed black exhaust when the engine was stressed and later, near Knoxville, noticed a significant loss of power. We had to quickly, once again, find emergency accommodations for the night and I again had to scramble to find someone to repair my truck at 3pm on a Friday afternoon.

I feel extremely fortunate that I found Tennessee Fleet Service, a little diesel repair shop some 20 miles away. They were able to diagnose and fix the problem in under 2 hours. They really saved the day. The only consequence of that breakdown was the loss of a day near Pigeon Forge. We had tentatively planned to visit Dollywood, but the stresses of the trip and the very cool weather dissuaded us.

The delay in Chenango Shores left us 3 days behind on our itinerary. We needed to eliminate one stop if we were to get to the Escapees rally on Nov 4. So our Nashville stop, planned for early in Segment 2, was also scrapped.

The Escapees rally was a change to our plan we had originally expected to stop in Homosassa Springs to see the manatees again, but when we saw that Escapees Chapter 57 was having a rally that week in Bushnell we joined the chapter and jumped at the chance to participate in the rally. That, along with the very nice visit with friends Roy and Patricia in Tellico Village TN, the Civil War sites in Chattanooga and the pleasant stay at Stone Mountain Campground, turned out to be the highlights of Segment 2.

And there were no further truck breakdowns. I guess I have to count that as a highlight as well.

Unless you want to count the failure of our heat and A/C a breakdown. It will have to be fixed, but seemed minor in comparison to the other ordeals that we survived on this trip.

TS4-2 Plan

TS4-2 Actual

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