The Big Bang Theory!

18th Mar 2013
The Big Bang Theory!


I had a real comical encounter a couple days ago. I saw an autotransformer listed for sale on the Orlando thousand Trails Campground bulletin board. The $400.00 autoformer was nearly new and a real bargain at $100. I called the number and learned the lister was in the campground and was selling it for a friend.

I drove over to the other side of the park and as they stated the part looked like new. I pulled out a $100 bill I always have tucked in my wallet and that’s when things got humorous. The man’s wife who was inside their motorhome hollered out the window, “Don’t take any hundred dollar bills!” I swear she sounded exactly like Howard Wolowitz’s mother on the Big Bang Theory TV show. Wolowitz’s mother is never seen in the show, only her screeching voice is heard.

As the seller and I stood outside and discussed the problem of how we were going to complete the sale Mrs. Wolowitzs continued her screeching rant from somewhere inside their RV. When I told him my old boss paid me in $100 bills and I’ve never seen a counterfeit, the Mrs. bellowed “There’s a lot of them around here, we see it on the news!”

At some point Mrs. Wolowitz decided to call the actual owner of the transformer. Now we had a four way conversation with questions relayed from Howard (his real name) the owner to Mrs. Wolowitz over the phone, she then hollering out the window to Mr. Wolowitz and him repeating it to me. When she screeched “Does he look like a criminal!” I had to say, she does know I can hear her doesn’t she?

I could have just run across the park and got $20’s but the situation was so comical I saw this blog story materialize and egged her on. When I told him the bill was good, I just printed it, he repeated it to the Mrs. and she shrieked into the phone “He said he just printed it!”

Finally I relented and got them the $20’s they demanded. Once they took the money and I had possession of the part I had to get in one more remark. I said you know with a $100 bill you only had to worry about one counterfeit, now you have 5 potential fake bills!

As I walked away I heard Mrs. Wolowitz yell “Get the license number off his car! He might be one of them scammers! I seen it on the TV news! There’s a lot of them around here!”

18th Mar 2013  Auto transformer

Used to protect the RV from low voltage sometimes encountered in campgrounds.

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18th Mar 2013  Hot air balloon

Nothing to do with the posting, these are just three of the dozen that floated over the campground on Sunday

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Ball game

 16th Mar 2013
Ball game


The Atlanta Braves Spring Training Camp is nearby at the ESPN Sports Fields, which is a part of the Disney Amusement Complex. On Friday we went over to see the Braves Play the Mets.

The stadium was packed, the weather was perfect, and the stadium food was actually pretty good. None of that helped the Braves, they lost 5-2, but we had a good time.

I took Millie to the Airport this afternoon; she flew out to New Mexico to visit with her daughter and Grandchildren. The dogs and I will stay here until she returns on Sunday, and then we will all head home to Myrtle Beach.

Maggie has been on the dash all evening watching out the windshield. Whenever she saw or heard a woman outside she jumped down and ran to the door whining. This behavior is very unusual for her and at first I thought it was because most people walking by in the evening are walking dogs. It finally dawned on me that she is looking for Millie; Maggie wants our pack to be together all the time and gets upset when one of us leaves. I finally closed the door, but she is still on the dash looking. Dixie’s staying close to me; she does that when Millie’s gone so I guess she misses her too.

16th Mar 2013  Braves vs Mets

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16th Mar 2013  Take me out to a ball game

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The Magic Kingdom

14th Mar 2013
The Magic Kingdom


On Wednesday Millie and I went to Disney world. You may remember in a previous posting the story that we got discounted tickets by attending a timeshare presentation. There are many different parks in the Disney complex, we chose The Magic Kingdom because Millie has never been there.

The Magic Kingdom is the centerpiece of the Amusement complex and is the home of the mouse, the castle, all the classic Disney themes, in essence the heart of the Disney Magic.

I’m trying really hard to not be a scrooge, and in fact can see why parents would take children from about age 4 to 8-ish. At that age it would indeed seem magical, but I honestly don’t see the draw beyond that age. Anyhow, not wanting to ruin the experience for Millie, I brass’ed it out, only to find out later in the day that she was wondering what all the Disney mystique is about. Obviously, we’re missing something as you can see in the pictures the rest of the world seems to be enjoying it.

Our day in the park was very pleasant, the parade was fun, the gardens are beautiful and we had a nice lunch in an outdoor cafe. The nice day we had at Disney made the four hours we spent in the time share presentation worthwhile.

14th Mar 2013  Waiting in line

This is the second of 3 lines you have to endure to get into the park.

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14th Mar 2013  Waiting for the magic

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14th Mar 2013  The Magic Kingdom

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14th Mar 2013  Some of our fellow tourists

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14th Mar 2013  The parade

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Two weeks left in Florida

 12th Mar 2013
Two weeks left in Florida


Once again we’ve moved back to our base camp at Orlando. Millie liked the Thousand Trails campground in Wauchula so next year we may use it as our base camp and rotate in and out of it. I like Orlando because it has anything you would want within a few miles. The Peace River Campground in Wauchula is in a very rural area with not much around it. Both of these campgrounds are Thousand Trails timeshare campgrounds.

We stopped in Bartow on our way up and loaded up at the PYR Latino bakery. They have moved and are now in a grocery store in the same shopping center. This is a depressed shopping center but we consider it daylight safe and the baked good are delicious.

We have a busy week planned; we are going to use our Disney tickets and would also like to see an Atlanta Braves game.

This morning I linked this blog to my Facebook page. I don’t know whether it will appear in its entirety or just a link.

Diary Photos

12th Mar 2013  Millie texting

Texting RayAnne that we were using a gift certificate she had given to her mom

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12th Mar 2013  Dixie on guard and looking for squirrels

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12th Mar 2013  Co-pilot

Maggie on her co-pilot position when we were getting ready to leave Peace River.

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The tall dark stranger

 8th Mar 2013
The tall dark stranger


Thursday evening was karaoke night at the campground meeting house and Millie and I walked up to check out the entertainers. Audience attendance was light which surprised us as the place was packed the other night for the jammers. We decided to stay as long as no one sang “Harper Valley PTA.” We’ve heard that sung at every music venue we’ve been too this winter!

One of the singers really surprised all of us; he was a big man, very tall with chiseled features and deeply tanned. He looked like a construction worker not an entertainer. His first two songs were Elvis tunes and they were flawless performances, he didn’t even look at the monitor for the lyrics, but knew them by heart. I told Millie there’s a story there; he must have a history of performing somewhere. Our only hint to his past came before he sang a song for his fiancée. He told how they had been married 40 years ago, divorced after two years and had just found each other again two years ago.

At the end of the evening they left and everyone started asking about him. No one knew him or had ever seen him before; he came in quietly, mesmerized us with his voice and then disappeared into the night.

See you down the road.

Diary Photos

8th Mar 2013  The tall dark stranger

Millie meets the most interesting man in the world at the San Jose Mexican restaurant in Sebring Florida.

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More music

 6th Mar 2013
More music


It is a well known fact that Florida is number one in credit card number theft. I was well aware of this and never use cards in restaurants in Florida. Restaurants are the only place where you allow someone to take your card out of your sight where it can easily be skimmed.

My number was stolen, we think in a small clothing store in Naples. There were several attempts to use my number but they didn’t have the security number from the back of the card. The card companies are pretty quick about identifying these theft attempts and the remediation is fairly painless for the card holder. The account is closed and they send you a new card. The good news for me is there were no successful fraudulent purchases so I don’t have to go thru the phone interview by the fraud investigation department.

There was a Jammers session here at the campground last night. Millie counted 23 musicians performing, most of them guitars but also a full size bass, a steel guitar, accordion, harmonica, a couple mandolins, and a fiddle. As you might expect some are very good, some not so much, but we enjoyed the show.

Diary Photos

6th Mar 2013  A picture I took of Millie in Sarasota

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6th Mar 2013  Jammers at Peace River campground

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Peace River for a week

 4th Mar 2013
Peace River for a week


The night before we left Orlando there was some excitement in the Campground. There was a forest fire adjacent to us and the D section had to be evacuated as a precaution. They parked RV’s on every road in the campground that was wide enough to accommodate them.

We had an uneventful and enjoyable ride down to the Peace River Thousand Trails Campground in Wauchula. Two weeks ago when we passed this way and had the flat tire Millie discovered a Latino bakery. We stopped there and loaded up on the trip south. Everything is baked fresh and displayed in cases; you cruise around the shop with a tray and tongs selecting your baked goods. It’s good eating especially with honey!

We are parked in a nice site which backs up to the Peace River. Last night we attended a concert here in the camp. It was a one man show, performed with synthesizer and keyboard and was pretty good. Today we drove to Sarasota and toured the Ringling Circus museum, art museum, family home and gardens. The circus, home, and gardens were interesting; art museums are all starting to look the same to us. I was more impressed with the building than with its art, I guess we’ve seen too many old dark paintings of 16th century ugly people.

Life is good, See you down the road!

Diary Photos

4th Mar 2013  Evacuated RV's parked on the road behind us

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4th Mar 2013  Millie and her new Beau

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4th Mar 2013  At the circus

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4th Mar 2013  At the museum

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Fun in Florida

Fun in Florida


Time flies when you’re having fun and our 14 day stay here in Orlando has flown by. Tomorrow morning we travel south about 60 miles to the other park here in Florida that is part of the Thousand Trails membership.

The campground has had entertainment several nights this past week and we have enjoyed going to the dances. Our friends Clay and Rebecca have joined us there on two nights. There was a community yard sale here this morning and I sold a lot of the excess RV stuff I had after replacing the old motorhome. Unfortunately I recently spent a lot more than I made because of the tire blow out we had on our way here.

Last Wednesday we took the motorhome to a truck service center in Orlando where I replaced all six tires. In my 60K+ miles of RV driving I’ve had 3 tire failures, 2 of them being sidewall blow outs. I (and lots of others) think these RV tire failures have two main contributing factors. First RV manufacturers almost always send new rigs out the door weighing close to the rating of the chassis. There are only two manufacturers of tires designed for motorhomes and each (IMHO) tries to balance weight carrying with smooth riding. They do this by making the sidewalls more flexible than a similar sized truck tire. Sidewalls flex from the weight, heat is generated faster than it can be dissipated= BOOM!
It sounds about like a shotgun blast when a 100 PSI tire blows the sidewall out. Anyhow, I hope I have reduced the chances of this happening to us again by installing truck tires with 14 ply sidewalls. We ran on several different roads and up to turnpike speeds on the way back to the campground and neither of us noticed any difference in the ride from the old RV tires.

We have a lot of traveling planned and I need the motorhome to be as safe as possible.

While we were waiting for the tire installation we walked the dogs around the property and came upon a guy loading used truck tires. We asked him what he did with them and learned he exported them to many overseas countries. Many other countries don’t have minimum tread regulations and they just run them till they disintegrate. That’s something to think about next time you’re on a tour bus in some third world country! He said he ships as many as 1000 tires per month. When we paid the bill I was told that besides the instant rebate they were cutting me a break by not charging for tire disposal. Hmmm, I thought, probably because he was going to make some decent money selling my old tires to the exporter.

One last useless but intriguing story. This morning at my yard sale a man and wife whom I knew neither rode up on a golf cart. While looking over my stuff he saw the Myrtle Beach License plate on the front of the motorhome and said “You're from Myrtle Beach, do you know Bernie?” Without thinking I responded “No but I know Elvis” because I do know one of our local Elvis impersonators. He said I though everybody in Myrtle Beach knew Bernie, she’s a feisty old gal. “Oh, Bernie Wells” I said “Of course I know Bernie!” We then exchanged Bernie stories and when we last saw her. Now what are the odds of that happening? It boggles the mind, but then most anything boggles the old mind nowadays!

See you down the road!

Diary Photos

2nd Mar 2013  Mini golf at the campground

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2nd Mar 2013  Our friends Rebecca and Clay

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2nd Mar 2013  The Entertainers

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2nd Mar 2013  Us at the dance

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