RV’ing with a Dog

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Questions for Thom…

 I recently received an email from a reader asking (and I paraphrase)… “Thom, why don’t you ever write about your dog?”

Well, that’s an easy one… we don’t have a dog. But I dare say the questioner’s assumption that we have one is understandable. Most RV’ers, by far the majority, have a dog, often more than one.

Some RV’er pet-owners have pets that are not dogs… we’ve seen cats, exotic birds, ferrets, and we did run across one fellow who thought he had a snake… hadn’t seen it for a couple weeks, but thought it was “still in there somewhere”. But all the “other” pets combined are just a small sliver of the pet pie. The vast majority are dog owners.

We were out for an evening stroll around an RV park late last year, just the two of us, when this woman comes up to us and demands “Where’s your dog?” For a moment I feared that maybe this RV park had a rule about it… maybe you must have a dog to get in. But no, not a rule… just an assumption.. and perhaps a little fear of some new campers with questionable credentials — “They’re not like us… they might be people who don’t like dogs!”

But Dar and I absolutely LOVE dogs. We do! We have a few “grand-dogs” in the extended family and always enjoy scratching their ears, playing catch, going for walks, picking up their poop. We’re just at the point in our lives where we love them a lot more when they belong to someone else. We’re at that same point in our lives when it comes to kids too. But I don’t think that makes us bad people, does it?

Seriously, we’ve made a conscious decision that, for us, having a dog along would really complicate things when we’re exploring, traveling, and trying to live in just 300 square feet. But I want to make it clear that this decision was for us… we realize and understand that others simply can’t be alone and can’t live without these furry members of the family — and that’s OK. We love scratching your dog’s ears as much as any.

Thom

A Growing To-Do List

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Whenever we’re close to one of our extended camps… Wisconsin or Washington or Texas… we find ourselves making up a to-do list of all the things, big and small, that we want to accomplish while not preoccupied with traveling and exploring. Sometimes I misplace the list and start a replacement — only to find the first one and then I’ve got two lists to deal with. This time, as we approach a pause in our travels, “the list” has grown to proportions I’ve never seen before. I haven’t seen anything about “securing world peace” but I do recall something about taking care of the Gulf oil spill problem (I think that was on Dar’s side… I hope)

So between visiting with Family and “the list”, we’ll be jumping and staying pretty busy the next few weeks. But that’s OK too. Sometimes we delude ourselves that this fulltiming lifestyle is like a big vacation — in theory… just take it easy, relax, and enjoy. However, there’s a difference between theory and reality. The reality is that we’ve got work to do sometimes. And that’s a good thing… I think.

I’ve also been thinking about how to handle this Journal during our Wisconsin stay. While some bloggers religiously post each and every day (they’re animals!… com’on, EVERY DAY!!?) I haven’t had that level of determination or commitment… and probably never will. But my almost-daily postings of late will certainly drop off somewhat — I can’t say for sure. I’ll try to keep the entries interesting and rewarding… at least once in a while.

Musing along the Mississippi…
T

Cleaner Email on a Bright May Day

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After a series of thunderstorms moved through the area last night, things cleared up, calmed down, and we woke to bright sun this morning.

One of my projects yesterday was to clean up our email. And by “clean up” I don’t mean simply to trudge through it all, read it, and decide whether to save or dispose of it. No, I mean to make an effort to eliminate much of it at the source.

Let me explain. Over the past few years a growing amount of email has been automatically dumped into our inbox each day from various sources. Most of it we’ve agreed to… a daily email with the recipe of the day… a daily digest of the latest Yahoo forum postings… daily reminders from Prevention Magazine to eat healthy… updates on this or that… you get the idea. Well, the volume of this type of email has grown to maybe 20 or more each day. It’s gotten to the point that most of the email we get is simply dumped without even looking at the body of the message. And that’s kinda’ stupid.

So yesterday I found the source for each of those I figured we could do without and turned them off. Even though some sites said it could be a few days before these automatic messages would stop coming through, I can see a dramatic difference already. My intention is to continue to keep the email sent to us as clean as possible. We love getting messages from friends and family with news about what’s going on in their lives — but we can certainly do without the recipe-of-the-day or the digest of the rants of a few individuals on some of the forums I belong to.

Oh, and something else I’ve found a partial solution to… unwanted forwards, which make up another significant slug of the email we receive. As I said above, we love to hear from people that want to connect with us to deepen the friendship or family ties. But the only time we hear from some people is when they’re forwarding emails originated by someone else… email chain letters, political messages, jokes, and other “cute” things that just don’t do it for us. The problem with email is that it’s too easy for people to just forward this stuff to everyone in their address book — without thinking about the time it takes to download it and figure out what to do with it all on the receiving end. Additionally, there’s the concern that these forwards are harboring viruses and other malware that can screw up a PC in short order.

I won’t say specifically what I did to handle these unwanted forwards… only to say that I was able to create a series of “rules” on my email providers server that sends them to a separate online folder that won’t be downloaded when I retrieve email… especially important if we’re on a slow connection, like here along the Mississippi in Southwest Wisconsin. Occasionally, I’ll glance at that online folder to see if the rules trapped anything that I may have wanted.

I’m sorry if I’m upsetting anyone that reads this. But it’s how I feel. We’d love to hear from you… but cool it with the forwards and just send a short note that let’s us know how things are going with you.

Thom

Small Rocks and Bright Lights

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I see I have some “catching-up” to do. We’ve been sooo relaxed the past few days, working on projects and writing in the Journal have suffered in lieu of building campfires and watching the ‘ol Miss flow past our campsite.

After visiting with our Cedar Falls friends on Monday evening, and after a very good nights sleep, we finally had everything ready for another day of travel by 10am on Tuesday. The drive was an easy one… about 130 miles, mostly eastward, to Dubuque, across the US-151 bridge over the Mississippi River, and just a little further to the town of Dickeyville. From there the bus-house took us northward on WI-35/US-61 to the twin communities of Tennyson and Potosi, and down a rustic road to the Grant River Corps of Engineers Campground situated hard along the banks of the big river.

We camped here during the Fall of 2008 [link to Journal article] and thoroughly enjoyed it. Grant River COE has about 60 campsites for RV’s and a few additional for tenters. The only negative about the place I can come up with is that it’s situated smack between the river and a pair of busy mainline railroad tracks. However we’ve found that we’re rarely awakened during the night because the bus-house does a good job of keeping outside sounds outside.

Since we were here last they’ve spent some considerable money on the Campground… new asphalt roads, many more concrete parking pads, tree trimming, new grass, and a general neatening up (not that it needed it!). So many other Federal facilities we’ve stayed at recently have clearly been neglected and apparently on the short end of the budget stick. I’m not sure why this one is different, but it’s good to see.

Yesterday, while exploring the area, the car started making a terrible grinding noise. Further examination (Dar running alongside the slow-moving car trying to figure out if she could isolate the noise to a specific wheel or area) determined that whatever it was was coming from the front right wheel. (What were the neighbors thinking?) The best way to describe the noise was a grinding sound — a loud, finger-nails-on-a chalkboard, grinding sound. A couple years ago we had a similar thing happen with the Chevy Blazer. In that case I just ignored the sound, turned the radio up a bit, and it eventually went away. I figured it was a small rock caught in the brake someplace and, I surmise, it (the rock) wore completely away. It was easy to ignore the sound on the old Blazer… less so with the new Focus.

While working on a plan of action (nearest Ford garage?… can we make it?… call tow-truck?…) I saw a small gas station that also installed tires. Imagine that, a real service station — just like the good old days. I drove in and in less than two minutes the owner was listening to our problem — both my verbal description and the obvious grinding sound from the wheel. And in less than another five minutes, he had the wheel off. There, on the ground under the removed wheel, was the culprit… a small rock or stone that had apparently lodged itself into a recess between the brake caliper and the spinning wheel. The way it was stuck it just remained in the recess and ground against the wheel as it spun. There was a small grove worn in the wheel and a matching shiny flat spot on the rock. As with the Blazer, it would have eventually ground completely away and the problem would have righted itself. I guess the moral to the story is that simply ignoring the problem can work.

Oh, by the way, the service station guy… he refused to charge us anything. Even after repeated pleading, he would not take anything for his time and effort. Now that doesn’t happen often, does it?

Every night we’ve been here along the Mississippi there’s been a campfire at the TDHoch campsite. We love watching the fire as well as the stars above. Often, just after sunset, we’ll see satellites in orbit — little dots of light that move silently and steadily across the sky. Last night, Wednesday night, about 9:20pm I spotted a very bright light moving upward just over the horizon to the Southwest. Thinking it was really a plane with it’s landing lights on (it was very bright), and thinking I could put one over on Dar, I pointed it out to her as I announced the first satellite sighting of the night. She didn’t believe it, thinking (like me), that it was a plane too. But planes don’t fly with landing lights on unless close to an airport and this thing wasn’t turning, wasn’t landing, wasn’t dimming, wasn’t making any noise, and wasn’t showing any other navigation lights that all planes have.

 We both watched it closely as it climbed almost directly overhead, and we both became increasingly convinced this wasn’t a plane… it was indeed something in orbit. It acted like a satellite… but the brightest I ever remember seeing. After some online investigating this morning I was able to confirm that we saw the ISS… the International Space Station… which, after all the recent “room additions” is now much larger than it was the last time we saw it soar overhead. It was a real treat for sky-gazers like us. And, by the way, it’s making a few more bright passes the next few evenings. If clouds don’t get in the way we’ll be out watching.

If you’d like to get a schedule of all the space junk flying overhead (your tax dollars at work) so you can waste campfire time by staring up once in a while, check out this site www.heavens-above.com . Once you punch in your location it’ll produce a list of stuff you can amuse yourself with… as the world turns.

Musing along the Mississippi
T

Evening with Friends

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It’s 10pm and we just got back from a very enjoyable dinner and evening with some of our Sandollar Texas friends… David & Carol Ann and Andy & Betty. Thanks, all of you guys, for a fun evening. We’ll see you all next winter.

Earlier this morning, amid remnants of light rain left over from the storm of the past few days, we left that great campsite at Lake Red Rock and headed north to the Waterloo/Cedar Falls area, where our aforementioned friends live. It was an easy drive, and only 120 miles. We found a convenient campsite at Black Hawk County Park, and get this… with full hook-ups. It’s been a couple weeks since doing laundry so we’re taking advantage of this opportunity to catch up in that department a little too.

But our Cedar Falls stop is a short one and we’ll be on the road again tomorrow… Tuesday. We’d like to spend a few days at another Corps of Engineers campground in Southwest Wisconsin before we wrap up this leg of the Sabbatical.

Tired, but typing away…
T

Confidence

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Since Friday a big storm system hanging around the Upper Midwest has been responsible for a spell of “stay-inside” weather and the more than 3 inches of rain that was in the rain gauge this morning. Today, while the rain abated somewhat, it’s been just nasty outside — cold wind, drizzle — you just want to curl up around the heater with a book (or a PC if you’ve got I.A.D. like me) and let it blow. Warmer days are ahead.

Since we’re parked below Red Rock Dam and right on the banks of the Des Moines River it’s good to have confidence in the U.S. Government and the Corps of Engineers if you want to get a restful night’s sleep in this campground. You see, the lake above the dam is fairly full. Heavy winter snows in Iowa recently melted and nearly filled the lake. Sure, you say, but they could just let more water out — pull the plug on the old bathtub and let ‘er drain out. But you’d be wrong, at least if you care about the good people of Ottumwa Iowa who are already dealing with downstream flooding problems from this same river. The last thing those folks need is even more water coming at ’em.

But the rains of the past few days also have to go somewhere — so the lake level is certainly rising again. That dam is already holding back a wall of water some 80 to 100 feet high. I’m sure they think it can hold a little more, especially if it’s going to help the people of Ottumwa. They have confidence.

Couple all that with the sign in the campground, just down the road from our site, that graphically reports the high-water level from a flood a few years ago — it was way over my head. Well, you just gotta have confidence!

So, as the rain poured down on the camper last night, I put my head down and fell quickly to sleep, confident that the 40 year old dam was properly designed and constructed, and will continue to do it’s job… at least for the next couple days. There are some things you’ve just gotta trust, at least if you want a good nights sleep around here.

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We had been planning to leave today, but the prediction of a much better travel day on Monday changed our minds. So tomorrow morning, we pull up jacks and head north to a rendezvous with some friends near Cedar Falls.

Wondering how long I can tread water…
T

The Drug Buy

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I take a daily medication to help keep a mild case of hypertension in check. Normally, my doctor writes a prescription for a 90 day supply with three refills… a years worth of this med… during my annual physical exam. That prescription is then sent in to the drug provider designated by my health care insurance plan. When it’s time to order another 90 day refill, I go online and place the order, paying a co-pay of $15. The prescription is then filled and the medication sent via US mail. Because of our nomadic lifestyle, it get’s sent to my “address” — my top-notch mail-forwarding service in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. The next bundle of mail from our forwarding service that gets sent to us along the trail will then include the prescription med that, by the time I get it, has traveled more miles than a near-sighted cat being chased by the hood ornament of a cross-country Mack truck.

Well, the other day I noticed that the number of pills left in my last bottle of this medication was less than the number of days until my next doctor’s appointment in May… the result of a timing issue between physicals. What to do..?

I called my Doc (actually his assistant) and arranged to have a prescription for a single 30 day supply of this medication electronically sent to a pharmacy near our camp in Iowa. I would then run over to the pharmacy and pick it up… problem resolved. She asked where I’d like the prescription sent. Not knowing particular pharmacies in the area, I was aware that there’s a Super Walmart just down the road… and that’s where I had her send it.

The next day we were out exploring and we stopped to pick up the order. The drug I take is an older drug and has a generic, which my health plan requires if I want to get by with just the $15 per 90 day supply co-pay. But since I’m getting this order outside off my plan’s maintenance medication program, I figured I’d probably be paying “big-time” for this 30 day supply even though I’ll still be getting a generic. So I was prepared when I headed for the pharmacy… check book, credit card, insurance card, drug plan card, grubby clothes so I’d look a little destitute, maybe needy of a good deal, resolved to be on my best behavior, prepared to do a fake Grand Mal seizure when I was told the price… which was bound to be high, very high.  I was ready for $50… oh, I would have happily settled for $50… but was fearing $80 maybe more than $100. These dang drug companies! Those greedy insurance companies… always ready to stick it to those who don’t jump through the right hoops in the right order. Dang-it…I was ready!

They found my prescription, it was all bagged up and ready to go. (OK, here goes –) “and how much will that be?” as I reached for my check book.

“That’ll be 4 dollars.”

“What?… are you talking per pill?“

“No sir… it’s 4 dollars total”

“What?… are these sugar pills?… placebos?… cough drops?  I mean, a medium bag of M&M’s cost more than $4″

“No sir… this is the medication you ordered.”

“And there’s 30 tablets in there?”

“Yes sir”

“Why is it only 4 dollars?  What’s going on here? Is this candid camera?”… as I look around for the hidden camera.

“No sir… Walmart has a prescription program for hundreds of commonly prescribed medications. They’re all $4 for a month’s supply… and only $10 for a 90 day supply.”

“Don’t I have to give you my insurance card or drug plan card or Walmart savings card, or fill out any paperwork, or be part of a club or something?”

“No sir. This is as complicated as it gets… you give me 4 dollars… and I’ll give you this bag.”

“What?… that’s less than my super-duper special deal worked out by my health care plan that ships my medications to the moon and back…” Befuddled, I just didn’t know what else to say. I quietly put my checkbook back in one pocket, found a couple crumpled $1s and some pocket change in another, paid for the order, and walked out of the store mumbling… “four dollars… just four dollars… what the…”

Later it occurred to me that this experience, the underlying idea, may play a part in lowering health care costs in the USA… inject a little more competition into the system. Don’t just assume you’re getting the best deal… look around, question your doctor, ask for alternatives that may be less cost,  do you really need this or that test?…push back a little. How often in the past few years have we heard about unexpected serious side-effects from the latest and greatest and grossly expensive medication that TV adds have convinced many of us we’ve got to have… and has turned out to not be fully tested or fraudulently approved for sale or actually dangerous. Speaking for myself, I think I like the idea of the staying with the older and proven medication.

And I may stop slamming Walmart for ruining America.

Hmmm, I wonder if Walgreens could do it for 3 dollars?

Thom

Courthouse Stories

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Official records from the mid-1800’s can be unreliable, error-prone, or missing altogether. That’s what we found during our visit to the Marion County Courthouse on Thursday. According to the County Register, records of births, deaths, and marriages weren’t mandatory until 1940, and prior to that, depended on the whim and diligence of those responsible at the time. And there was no system in place to capture the information so it was a haphazard process to say the least.

Land transactions were another story however. It was more important, apparently, that things dealing with ownership and wealth were accurately detailed and recorded than things like births or deaths — an understandable if not somewhat inconvenient fact for genealogists. We found detailed records of the original land transactions by my ancestors way back to 1870. And we found a number of historical plat maps that showed ownership as early as 1875. Here, through the magic of digital photography, is an example.

Instead of paper photocopies, we documented much of our findings by simply snapping digital photos of the documents. As long as the light is right the detail that can be captured is far better than a traditional photocopy.And it’s much more convenient to store these images electronically and, if necessary, print copies on demand.

The Marion County Courthouse itself is an impressive structure, one of the nicest we’ve seen during our travels. Originally built in 1896, it went through an extensive refurbishing during the 1970’s. Inside there’s a central rotunda that extends through the four main floors — a feature not common in often utilitarian county courthouses.

I’m also happy, if not somewhat relieved, to report that I found no records of my ancestors doing time in the county pokey. One can only assume they were hard-working, law-abiding, God-fearing, citizens — right?

After all that time in the bowels of the courthouse archives it was time for an early dinner, and a nearby Applebees served the purpose perfectly. Besides tasty entrees, a sparky waitress made the stop fun too. Then it was back to camp and an evening bike ride through the park which produced sightings of deer, geese, and large fish (carp?) jumping and splashing in the river. Finally, we watched the sun set behind the dam as we toasted the end of another day of exploration.

This morning we woke to rain. And it’s supposed to be wet all day. So I think we’ll spend the day at the bus-house and get caught up on a few things.

T

Tour Around the Lake

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During our travels around America we occasionally find areas that just feel right, comfortable. Lake Red Rock is one of those places. Because of it’s location near Wisconsin it may well become a regular stop during our annual travels to the upper Midwest.

I’ve written before about Corps of Engineers campgrounds. If you like “camping” and can live without full hookups, they are often among the best choices. But, as you’d expect, some are better than others. Some are older and designed for tent campers or small camping trailers — with smaller sites that can often be very un-level. Others handle larger campers and motorhomes just fine. The Lake Red Rock COE campgrounds are among the best we’ve experienced, clearly designed for big rigs, and maintained very well.

Yesterday, Wednesday, we took a circle drive around the lake, stopping and checking out all the other COE campgrounds (yes, there are more than one), a county park with RV camping sites, and the Elk Rock State Park. All the COE campgrounds were of the same quality as the one where we’re camped. The county campground was not bad either. But the State Park was not really appropriate for campers like the bus-house.

Lake Red Rock is the largest lake in Iowa, formed when the Red Rock Dam plugged up the Des Moines River in 1969. It’s primarily a flood control project and as such the level of the lake can vary considerably. It’s maximum size is about 70,000 acres, but most of the time it’s more like 15,000 to 20,000 acres. Long and narrow, it stretches 15 or 20 miles in length. The photo above is a composite of 5 separate photos, and can be enlarged by double clicking. The dam is way off on the extreme left side.

The lake is pretty full right now, the result of heavy snowfall in Iowa during this past winter. They’re dumping a lot of water through the dam and keeping the Des Moines River below as full as they dare. We know this because we’re camped below the dam and the river goes right by our campsite… and you can be sure we keep an eye on the water level. Now, I trust the operators of the dam know what they’re doing, but in the spirit of self-reliance and keeping us safe, the Safety Director has me go over to the river every morning and do a measurement, just to make sure.

Today we’re going into Knoxville to haunt the Courthouse archives… the next phase of Dar’s genealogy project. She’s going to focus on birth, death, and wedding records of my ancestors. My job is to check out the jail house, court, and police records. Hmmm.

Rapidly Researching near Lake Red Rock…
Thom