Saturday, January 29, 2011

Bringing the blog up to date.

Location, Bouse, AZ

A quick synopsis of the last few weeks to bring this blog up to date is in order. After the CES show, Dick and I stayed in Las Vegas until Wednesday the 12th when we traveled to Quartzsite, AZ.

While in Las Vegas we visited the new MGM City Center. Great glass structures, wonderful art work, and lots of glitz. It was a fun 2 days but very cold. The temperature stayed in the 40’s most days. It was too cold at night to travel far for dinner so we mostly ate at local buffets.

At Quartzsite, we parked at our usual spot on Plamosa Road and eventually were surrounded by people we know. Dick and I drove to Phoenix to the Maricopa Steam Railroad layout for a steam train meet. What a great day of riding behind the small steam engines.

We stayed overnight in a motel and then picked Clyda up the next morning when she flew in from home. We drove back to the RV on Plamosa Road.

A few days at all the swap areas in Quartzsite satisfied our shopping urge. Budd and Brenda stopped by for a few days on their way back home from Mesa, AZ so we shopped with them as well. I didn’t find any great bargains this year; in fact I was disappointed in the LED light offerings. Prices seem to have doubled from last year. So, I will do some shopping on-line to see if there are better bargains.

Last Tuesday we moved to the eastern end of Plamosa Road and parked at our friends Jack and Judy’s acre south of Bouse. They have a nice RV spot for guests and we are most appreciative of them letting us use it.

I have managed to get in two ATV trips this week which was great. Both were long trips to areas I had not been to before.

We were supposed to travel to Benson, AZ for a week with 4 other couples but our son Craig is having back surgery next week and we feel we need to go home to take care of him. We will leave the trailer here. Our hope is that we can come back in two weeks and continue with part of our originally planned trip. At the least, I will come back to get the trailer if there is a problem.

We have had glorious weather with temperatures in the 70’s most days.

There are no pictures included with this blog because of slow uploads.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Four days of CES.

Location, Las Vegas

Today was the last day of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) here in Las Vegas. After the first two days I wasn’t sure that I could survive the last two. Walking the floor with that Exhibit Hall Shuffle is hard on the hips and the feet. Frequent rest stops during the day and a couple of Aleve at the end of the day helped.

This is a huge show with 2400 vendors and about 140,00 or more attendee’s of which 30,000 are from overseas. If there was a theme this year it was Connectivity. Ways to connect all of our favorite phones, ipods, cars, and TV’s were demonstrated. Tablet computers, 3D-TV’s, smart appliances, medical services, senior services, and even electric/hybrid cars were demonstrated.

Several very large booths dominated some of the halls. Companies like LG Electronics, NBC-Universal, Verizon, Motorola, Microsoft, and Intel to name a few. NBC-Universal broadcast live shows for MSNBC, Bravo, and Oxygen.

I talked to an NBC intern who wanted me to do Karaoke for Oxygen. I declined. I assured him he didn’t want to hear me sing.

Hardball with Chris Matthews broadcast live from the NBC-Universal booth at the show.


If last years color was red. This year it was orange. Orange cars, orange badge hangers, orange bags, and even orange boots on some of the girls in one booth. There were orange display racks, orange packaging, orange counter tops, and orange give away’s. What’s with the color orange?


Just what every trunk needs. A TV and enough speaker power to raise the back wheels off the ground.


How about an amplifier to drive all those speakers. About 10,000 watts I would guess. It is 3 feet long so where do you store it?


How about a speaker that requires an engine hoist to lift it.


This is for you Jack. Think you can fit this setup on your 4-wheeler?
How about dressing up your mule with enough lights and spakers to scare every deer for miles around.



Not just one TV but three.


It was a great show with lots of miles walked.




Monday, January 3, 2011

Ready to hit the road.

Location, Home, CA

Just a short post before I hit the road tomorrow for Las Vegas, NV with an overnight stop at Boron, CA. Staying in Boron may be a bad choice as the temperature will be around 20 degrees with snow. I need to look at the Cal-Trans website tomorrow morning to see if the Grapevine (I-5) is open or still closed to high profile vehicles.

We had more rain overnight so now have had a total of 15.7 inches since December 17th. That is above our usual total for the year which is about 14 inches.

I have the RV all loaded but still need to load the bed of the truck in the morning. I plan to leave by 10 AM.

I downloaded the necessary software to the NetBook so I can use my Droid phone to access the internet. I will use it in a pinch if no WiFi is available. I can get emails and do searches now with the Droid but it is so much easier using the NetBook to do real emails.