CapnBob

Camping Day 1 – Holbrook, AZ

Just a quick post to let y’all know we’re on the road headed for Albuquerque to witness the annular eclipse on Saturday 10/14/2023. We’re camped in Holbrook, AZ tonight and will head out tomorrow to the next stop at American RV Park.

We may post some pix from Painted Desert and/or Petrified Forest tomorrow night after the commute.

We saw these on or way here:

Saguaro Forest AZ on Hwy SR74

San Francisco Peaks approaching Flagstaff on I-17

UPDATE: We had a dramatic change in weather – the overnight low in Holbrook was 29°F!

Fourteenth Retirement Anniversary

These various anniversaries seem to be coming faster and faster. Perhaps it’s just my imagination, but it seems like we just celebrated thirteen years of retirement! Tempus Fujit!

Our goals that we set a year ago never seemed to come to fruition; we were supposed to take the RV on a shakedown cruise and never got to it. We were too busy enjoying retirement I guess. Anyhow the plans for the cruise have changed and we’re going to head out soon. We had the Diesel shop inspect everything and got new tires for the trip. It should be fun. See our Eclipse Countdown Page for a preview of one planned destination.

During the next year, we have a loose plan to visit the homelands of some of our ancestors. We have traced our lineage back to the 6th great grandparents in some of our family trees and wish to see the places where they farmed, built homes and lived their lives as pioneers. It should be interesting and inspirational.

And now, as we head into our fifteenth year of retirement (25th for Damsel), we thank God for our good health and plan to ask His blessing on more of the same.

Blogiversary No. 18

Every year our Blogiversary falls on or around the Autumnal Equinox; in this year’s case, equinox is tomorrow, so happy fall y’all! Our weather has been like “second spring” for over a week now, and we’re expecting the same until near the end of October when the temperatures usually start cooling down.

As for the Cap’n Bob and Damsel Blog. we are now old enough to be considered an adult blog (however, not in the nasty or obscene sense). Our sporadic blogging still continues with a few offerings a month and when warranted, daily accounts of significant events such as traveling reports, etc.). We should be reporting on our Eclipse excursion next month.

Thank you all for watching over us these many years and hope to see you here whenever we post something.

Great Grandkids

In the photo above, Mikey (5) and Alex (9), our two great grandsons are enjoying a carnival ride somewhere in Northern California. (Photo courtesy of Granddaughter Anna.) The boys look like they’re having a bit of fun out there.

The big news, however, is that today is Alex’s 9th Birthday. Anna sent me this photo of him and his birthday cake. Looking all smiles and handsome, Alex will be getting a new pair of rollerblades and numerous other goodies for his 9th. Happy Birthday, Alex!

We really miss the great grandkids, the boys above and the two girls, who all live near each other in the Santa Rosa, California area. We, however, no longer travel to that area because both Damsel and I carry concealed sidearms for self protection all the time and cannot carry in California because of their insane (and unconstitutional) gun restrictions. That may be resolved one of these years, but we’re not holding our breath.

Perhaps we can convince our (broke in California) three Granddaughters and their significant others to bring the Kids to Arizona for a visit. We will probably wind up helping them to “foot the bill” for all the travel expenses, but it would be worth it to us to see them all again.

Meanwhile, Happy Birthday to Alex and many happy returns!

Never Forget

Today marks the 22nd anniversary of the tragic events at the World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York City, NY, in a field near Shanksville, PA and at the Pentagon in Arlington, VA. Many have forgotten the events, but we have not.

On the right is the animated .gif version of our famous “Never Forget” graphic which had upwards of 95 million views before we took it down due to most browsers not supporting the format. We are still proud that the animation received such widespread recognition. The .gif version lacks all the dramatic zooms, fades and pans that the Flash® version had, but the main idea still comes across.

Now, that another year has passed since the attack, we find ourselves more concerned about the sabotage from within our own borders under the current administration. Out of control agencies like the ATF, FBI and most others have shown and continue to show threats to the Constitutionally-protected rights of Americans, particularly those of us who support our original Constitutional Republic under God. Pray with us as we ask the Almighty to continue His Blessings on America.

RV Gas Run

Image: All done with fueling and getting ready to back up the RV drive

Blogging has been sparse as of late, mostly due to an ongoing problem with home repair since June. That problem, which is now completely resolved, will be discussed in detail and will be posted in a subsequent blog later in September.

Given that we’re going to be traveling to Albuquerque in October (only about six weeks from this post date) to witness the annular solar eclipse in October, we’re getting the big RV ready for the trip. It has been idle in its parking spot in the RV drive behind the house for too much time (I am embarrassed to say how much time). So, today was the day to fire it up and head to the gas pit to take on some fuel.

I say the RV has been “idle” which is not exactly the case since I have a weekly chore where I fire up the diesel engine once a week for fifteen minutes or so and I fire up the 6KVA generator once per month. We check the fluids, air pressure the satellite TV receiver and several other functions just to make sure all is well. We have had some maintenance done in place with Air Conditioning and Awning Repair, and one big electrical problem.

So, after running the engine for all this time, we have been getting Zero MPG, but the big guy was getting down to the red arc on the fuel gauge thus requiring a trip for Diesel. I went through the preflight checklist and got the RV ready to go to the station for some fuel. The price of diesel, of course thanks to Bidenomics, was upward of $4.68/gal today, so I used my reward points from Safeway/Chevron to get the first 25 gallons at a $1.00 discount. I only put 25 gallons in (the tank holds 90 gals) and when I get another ten reward points on my Safeway card I will put in another 25 gallons.

So the big guy is again on the RV drive where we will be getting it ready for the upcoming excursion to Northern AZ and Albuquerque. We also might be upgrading the tires, since they have had some hard time sitting in the Arizona Heat and Cold. Nothing lasts very long in the elements here. More on that when it’s time.

Almost Cloudless
Plus an Irish Feast

The (clickable) satellite image above was taken the morning of August 4th showing the southwest and Arizona in particular having virtually no cloud cover. There are a few cumulus clouds forming over the mountains north of the Grand Canyon at the time this image was taken. We seem to be having a lack of our usual monsoon rains with a side effect of warmer than usual temperatures. Rest assured that there will eventually be a return to normal to come hopefully sooner than later. The global climate scammers are unnecessarily worrisome over normal weather deviations.

Now that we’re about halfway between Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox it is again a Celtic Cross Quarter celebration of Lughnasadh which means (to us) that there must be a traditional Irish or Scottish meal to be consumed. So, Damsel is being creative and will offer a hybrid Western/Gaelic feast consisting of a Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado and Tomato Chicken Salad (western) served over Homemade Soda Bread (Irish). There may be a traditional Irish Cocktail involved.

We will be posting about our feast on our Food Website later this weekend. Meanwhile, everybody please enjoy your weekend with whatever you consider to be relaxing.