Jane and John – we travel and we ranch!

We last left off with our report about Commissioning Week at the US Naval Academy and then were headed to Gaffney, SC for Freightliner factory service on our motorhome chassis. Then it was on to visit our good friends of many years, Les and Karen in Oriental, NC, then back home for about a month.

In Gaffney, SC we had some major routine maintenance performed.  Major since we have now rolled over 50,000 miles.  We needed an engine coolant change (over 10 gallons), new synthetic transmission fluid (at about $35 a gallon), engine oil change (about six gallons of that), differential fluid changed (I think that was only five or six gallons.)  Since we have air brakes like a large truck, we have an air dryer to keep moisture our of the system – that cartridge needed to be replaced.  Oh, we also had a new engine air filter installed – our air filter is about the size of a round kitchen trash can (the kind where you step on a pedal to lift the lid.)

And of course, we can’t forget servicing of the diesel generator [sigh...]  We left quite a bit of money in Gaffney.

The visit with Les and Karen was fun as always and our few days passed too quickly.  After leaving Oriental, we made a bee-line for home so John could tend to some ranch duties.

The idea of being back in Texas in the summer was for the primary purpose of spraying the prickly pear (using a restricted herbicide called Surmount, but John now has an applicator license) to kill it.  Eventually.  The herbicide takes two to three years to kill the pear (as it is called around here),  it is a tenacious plant as you might imagine.  Ranchers actually like pear since it makes great food for cattle (at least once you burn the spines off so the cattle can actually eat it) and it is very drought resistant.  However if there is too much pear, it will decrease the amount grazing land available.  We are on the verge of having too much pear, so it is important to control it now.

Unfortunately the weather didn’t cooperate (too much wind most of the time) and when it looked like we were going to have a good day to use a boom sprayer on the tractor, the tractor developed a hydraulic leak.  John found a leaking seal and replaced it (along with 10 gallons of new hydraulic fluid – it seems like everything we own uses 6-10 gallons of a petroleum product.)

The tractor was finally back in business (took a few days for the seal to arrive), and so was the wind.  He did manage to spot-spray quite a bit of pear from the mini-truck with a 30 gallon electric sprayer and a hand wand.

John has been wanting to add a roof-top air conditioner to the coach for a couple of years (our present AC is a ‘basement’ unit) for those moments in hot climates, so he finally accomplished that.  It was a great excuse to to buy another toy, er, tool.  He bought a used electric scissor lift (Genie GS-2032) from an Internet auction so he could safely lift the 95 pound unit to the roof of the coach.

July 5th we hit the road headed for the Winnebago factory in Forest City IA for a little more maintenance (are you spotting a pattern here?) and to attend the Winnebago Grand National Rally.  Two days of maintenance and about four days of rally fun passed quickly.  In the meantime our satellite Internet system was having problems.  We got switched to another satellite which was a big improvement, but then had a different issue.  John ended up switching satellite modems out (we had a spare) and that seemed to be the trick – we were on-line again.

Then we headed west to hookup with our RV buddies Bob & Judy in Colorado – we wanted to get relief from the heat and humidity.  When we arrived at a little campground in eastern Colorado (Seibert) yesterday, John discovered the satellite TV in-motion dome (we have DirecTV  while running down the road) has failed yet again.  This is our 4th King Dome (from King Controls) and #4 has failed previously. The back TV is on a separate dish, so at least we have some satellite TV available.

On our way to Colorado, we were in a torrential rainstorm somewhere in Kansas on I-70 and discovered a leak at the top of the windshield (best taken care of by the factory in our opinion), so we’re going to be back there for an appointment September 13th.  [big sigh...]  We’re never at a loss for things to do – there is always something to deal with

Thanks again for traveling along with us, may God richly bless you and keep you safe.

Wow!  What a busy past week (picture gallery.)

We are tired from all of the activities we participated in for the Naval Academy’s Commissioning Week (one of Jane’s childhood girlfriend’s son was graduating from the Naval Academy) which concluded in the conferring of academic degrees (Bachelor of Science) and the commissioning of the midshipmen into either the Marine Corps, Navy, or even the Army or Air Force (special circumstances for Army/Air Force commissioning.)

The week started for us with a demonstration of precision marching and rifle handling by the Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon based at Marine Barracks Washington.  The 24 man rifle platoon performs their entire drill without any commands, drum beats,

The entire drill is performed without any command of any sort

or any other visual or aural clues.  The Marines were all about the same height, looked about the same, and acted as one organism.  Their routine was a thing of beauty to watch.  There are some YouTube videos of the guys performing and I encourage you to search them out and watch the guys in action.

We thoroughly enjoyed a walking tour of the over 300 acre Naval Academy site first established in 1845 by then Secretary of the Navy, George Bancroft.

The dormitory that houses all 4,000+ midshipmen under one roof is in fact named after George Bancroft.  This is one humongous building (the largest dormitory in the world) consisting of 33 acres of floor space, 1,700 rooms and 4.8 miles of halls.

In addition to the midshipmen rooms, Bancroft Hall houses offices for the Commandant of Midshipmen, six battalion officers, six battalion chaplains, thirty company officers and their senior enlisted leaders, a barbershop, bank, travel office, a small restaurant known as “Steerage,” textbook store, general store (“The Naval Academy Store” or “The Mid Store”), laundromat, uniform store, cobbler shop, the USNA Band, the USNA branch of the United States Postal Service, a gymnasium, spaces for extracurricular activities, and full medical & dental clinics as well as small optometry and orthopedics clinics. The Hall even has its own ZIP code (21412)!

The building also contains King Hall (named after Fleet Admiral Ernest King), where all midshipmen are fed simultaneously three times daily.

The midshipmen gather in formation three times a day, five days a week (except the summer) in the large plaza in front of Bancroft to count noses and gain more practice at assembling, marching, and following a military routine.  Every Friday, there is a formal Color Parade at Worden Field in which all 4,000+ midshipmen again get more practice in marching and generally following a very regimented lifestyle (my analysis!)  We got to watch a noon meal formation in front of Bancroft Hall and the very last Color Parade for the first class (seniors) midshipmen.  It was so hot and miserable, 62 mids were either carried off or helped off the parade grounds due to heat exhaustion.  We heard one was taken to the academy hospital!  The mids were dressed in their dark blue formal uniforms so it’s no wonder so many were being helped off the field.  The local Annapolis newspaper showed some pictures of the graduating ‘firsties’ playing in a fountain after their parade – celebrating and cooling off!

On the same day as the color parade another tradition happens, the Herndon monument plebe climb.

A ‘plebe’ is a first year or freshmen student that has a very difficult life at the Academy until they transform from civilian student to military student.  These kids leave a known and familiar world for a completely different environment where they are challenged physically, emotionally, and mentally with the upper classmen  and Chief Petty Officers (senior enlisted Naval non-commissioned officers) dishing out the ‘works.’   Their first year is extremely challenging and demanding and when they realize their plebe year is about over and they will advance a year, they are all excited with the realization of a major milestone accomplished in their path to becoming a commissioned officer in the armed forces.

This excitement is discharged with the Herndon monument plebe climb (we finally got back to this!)  All 1,000+ plebes dress in their gym outfits and prepare to climb the 21 foot tall Herndon obelisk with the objective of replacing the plebe ‘dixie-cup’ cap  previously placed on top with a hat worn by 1st, 2nd and, 3rd class mids.  Traditionally the obelisk is greased with lard and the plebes sprayed with water while they climbed, but this year the Commandant of the Naval Academy decreed no grease for safety reasons (which turned out to be an extremely unpopular and provocative decision since he altered a long tradition.)

The Blue Angels put on quite the show

The Navy’s Blue Angels (officially the Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron) performed their amazing aerobatics right in front of the Naval Academy over the Severn River.  We have never ever been so close to an aerobatic show, either civilian or military.  There are 20 pictures of this demonstration in our photo gallery (I took 500!)  You aviation lovers be sure and check it out.

Last Friday was the event that 1,000+ midshipmen ‘firsties’ and thousands of family, friends and supporters were eagerly anticipating – the commissioning of the mids into the Navy, Marines, or for the class of 2010, one into the Army.  The new  Navy officers are commissioned as Ensigns (O-1), and Marine/Army as 2nd Lts (also O-1).  The rank insignia is one gold bar affectionately referred to as the ‘butter bar.’

The speaker for this commissioning ceremony was Vice President of the Unites States Joe Biden while President Obama was the speaker for the West Point ceremony (they trade off each year.)  Biden shook the hand of each graduate – I’ll bet his hand needed

VP Joe Biden shakes the hand of new Navy Ensign Quinn Rohane

a rest after all of that.

We are all very proud of brand-new Ensign Quinn Rohane who has chosen the Naval Flight Officer (NFO) career track.  He reports to Pensacola Naval Air Station in about 30 days for primary flight training.  Quinn’s NFO track is not a pilot track, but he will be aboard Naval aircraft in an electronics warfare capacity or something similar (navigator, radar intercept officer, ??)

We leave the Annapolis area tomorrow and are headed to Gaffney, SC for some routine maintenance maintenance on our Freightliner coach chassis, and then later on the week we head to the Oriental, NC area to have another visit with some dear old friends, the Auths.

We are currently located in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley just outside Luray, VA and we’re surrounded by mountains and gorgeous rolling ranch and farm land at our RV park.  We initially came here for a couple of days and when we leave later this week, we will have been here for over two weeks!

As a quick recap of what we have been doing for the last month we have been on the road, we left our little ranch in the Texas Hill Country on tax day, April 15 and headed for the Mineola (the Mineola Civic Center) to attend a Winnebago rally.  Mineola is a very nice small town in NE Texas and

John made an ugly little girl

it was quite the contrast to the hill country with its pine trees and sand.  The civic center was quite nice with great banquet facilities and the catered food was really tasty.  As a bonus, there were very large open fields where John got to fly a plane he brought along.

After leaving Mineola, we made a beeline for Chippokes Plantation State Park in tidal Virginia which happens to be across the James River from Jamestown and Williamsburg.  We were meeting up with our RV (and boating) friends Bob and Judy at the park and we were going to do

Jane and John at the Jamestowne visitor center

some more volunteer work there.  John takes care of the park’s weather station and helps out doing some computer maintenance there and other odd jobs.  Chippokes Plantation State Park is about a 1200 acre actual working farm with nice camping and period houses for rent.  While at Chippokes we actually managed to play tourist this time (last summer we worked the entire 10 days we were at the park) and visited Historic Jamestowne.  Getting there is a little fun (at least for the first couple of times) since you have to take a free ferry across the river.  We stayed at Chippokes for about two weeks and left for an RV park in Luray, Virginia which is very near the Shenandoah National Park.

John thought there would be some good sightseeing in the area and sure enough there was.  The Shenandoah National Park was created by the CCC in the 1930s (like many, many other parks and public works) and was designed primarily for automobile sightseeing along the mountain ridge.  We drove this 105 mile long “Skyline Drive” and the scenery was very nice – not spectacular, but nice.  It was good to visit there.

Next on the sightseeing list was the Virginia Military Institute’s “Hall of Valor” civil war museum in nearby New Market.  During the New Market engagement of the civil war, the VMI cadets were called upon to augment

Monument to the 54th Pennsylvania - New Market battle

the regular Confederate solders and saw action.  10 VMI cadets were killed in this battle.  The New Market story was quite interesting and is certainly worth reading about.

Another popular attraction in the area is Luray Caverns – billed as the “Largest Caverns in the East.”  We have been to the granddaddy Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico years ago and didn’t think anything could top that and weren’t particularly interested in visiting Luray Caverns, but we did anyway and weren’t disappointed.  Luray Caverns is quite a bit smaller, but interesting nonetheless.  There is quite the oddity in the caverns – an organ that strikes the stalactites to make the musical notes.  This project was one man’s dream and obsession and after we heard the organ play a recorded piece, we weren’t very impressed.  The music was a little weird sounding – don’t think this will catch on in other caverns .

John has been eager to finally rebuild our website and it actually happened over the last seven or eight days and he just put the finishing touches on it today.  He has been banging and fussing away at the keyboard for what seems like an eternity.  Also there are more pictures added to our gallery, so with this blog entry, we are pretty well caught up!

We leave here later this week and head for the Annapolis area where we will party with the Rohanes/Topleys/Josselyns/French celebrating Quinn Rohane’s graduation from the Naval Academy.  Should be lots of fun during commissioning week.

That’s it for now!