Monday November 20th 2017

The overnight temperature was in the high 30s again. Unfortunately, there was cloud cover this morning. The sun was not able to warm the interior of the RV quickly. I had to turn the heat on for a couple of hours. Around 10am the sun was out in full force warming the inside air. The temperature topped out at the seasonal normal high in the mid to high sixties. Tomorrow and the days to follow are forecast above the normal temperatures flirting with record highs through the weekend.

Desert P\plant picture of the day.

This morning I picked up an Amazon delivery at a local Amazon locker. I could of had the package shipped here to the RV Park, but tried the locker for the novelty of the experience. It might be an advantage if the normal carriers are backlogged. I think shipping to the lockers is handled by Amazon and not FedX, UPS or similar shipping services.

The delivery contained two HDMI splitter extenders to solve my satellite TV distribution problem. The splitters that came with the RV got bounced around to much. They have been out of service since June. Consequently, I have only had satellite TV on my bedroom TV and I haven’t had any access to my Blueray DVD player. With my purchases I now have satellite TV on both the bedroom and living room TVs. I will live with no satellite or Blueray on the outside TV for this simpler, hopefully more reliable, solution.

The original HDMI splitter. It takes 1 HDMI input and has 1 HDMI and 7 CAT6 outputs. Four of the CAT 6 outputs weren’t used. The need for one HDMI output is what made finding an alternate solution difficult.

This afternoon I got the big old hardware out of the cabinet and the new little hardware installed in it’s place. There is more room for air circulation and I should be able to anchor it down better than the old units. Testing everything out I have successfully got satellite TV in the bedroom and living room. The Blueray is another problem. It isn’t working on either TV.

The new HDMI Splitter Extender (I forgot to take a picture of the actual unit, so the box will have to do). This unit only has two outputs, one HDMI and one CAT6, but it is also only as big as a deck of cards. The other one was more like a heavy dress tie box.

I made a trip to Walmart, Home Depot and another Walmart looking for a connector to help diagnose the problem with the Blueray DVD player. Ten miles and an hour plus later I had the means to isolate the problem to the DVD player itself. It turns on and displays the start up messages on the LCD display, but nothing seems to be coming out the HDMI cable in the back to feed the TVs. Unlike the HDMI switches the Blueray is a quality LG unit that should stand up to the bouncing in the RV. I need to do some more testing before I look for another unit. I don’t use the Blueray much anyway.

The good news is I can now watch ESPN, HGTV and all the Hallmark Christmas movies in my living room. When I retreated to the bedroom to watch programs I usually fell asleep on the bed somewhere in the middle of the program.

Sunday November 19th 2017

The temperature got down into the high thirties overnight. It was around 50 inside the RV when I got up this morning around 8am. It warms up quickly inside once the sun hits the windows. The high was in the low 60s late in the day. It was a very nice fall day overall.

Sunset at the RV Park.

I didn’t leave the RV park today. I spent most of the day watching the football coverage. Here in the Pacific time zone coverage starts at 9am with the pregame shows and continues through the end of the Sunday night game around 8:30pm. I wasn’t glued to the screen all day. At half time of the first two games I took a walk around the RV resort for some exercise and I only watched a few minutes of the night game.

I was happy to see the Patriots win against the Raiders. People around here are not as happy. The Raiders broke ground on their new stadium in Las Vegas last weekend. They will be moving here in the summer of 2020, but the local media has jumped on the Raiders band wagon big time. At least two of the stations had a reporter down in Mexico City to cover the game and another reporter was at a local bar that had a watch party. I can only imagine what it will be like after the team gets here.

Blossom of he day.

Saturday November 18th 2017

Yesterday’s cold front had the expected impact. The temperature didn’t get out of the sixties today. Tonight, as I write this blog entry, it is fifty degrees. It may make it down to the thirties. A freeze warning is out for some areas in the region. I understand this is normal conditions for December and January. November is supposed to be a little warmer. By Thanksgiving we’re forecast to be in another hot spell.

Today’s flower blossom is an interesting yellow ground cover plant.

Most of my day was spent watching sports on TV. For a little exercise I took a walk around the RV park in the early afternoon. I was surprised at the number of empty sites. It is hard to understand what drives the ebb and flow of occupancy here. At the beginning of the month there were no sites available and they were using storage sites for travelers. I wonder what it will be like over the long Thanksgiving Day weekend.

I was reviewing some of my older blog entries today. Last year at this time I was staying in an Army Corp of Engineers campground east of Fort Meyers Florida. The approaching holiday season was not on my mind. I think because I am in the middle of an urban area this year I am very aware of the start of the Christmas shopping season. The celebration events also start earlier out here. I recall that the Christmas event at the Edison and Ford Winter Mansions in Fort Meyers kicked off the day after Thanksgiving. Here many of the Christmas light displays started last weekend around the 11th of November.

Toward evening today for a distraction I went to Boulder Station Casino to “donate” a few dollars. I spent a couple of hours listening to to music, people watching and hitting a button on a slot machine or two. I didn’t leave with more money than I arrived with, but my loss was in a reasonable entertainment budget.

Friday November 17th 2017

Today started off cloudy with a constant south wind. As the day went by the clouds broke up and the wind speed increased. It turned out to be a warm day with heavy wind gusts. This evening the cold from finally passed through the area. The wind has reversed and is now blowing from the northwest. Either the wind is much stronger or I’m less sheltered from the wind out of the northwest, It sounds and feels worse than it has in the last couple of days.

Waterfalls and fish ponds at the Bass Pro Shops.

My days of late have followed a pattern. I hang around the RV in the morning doing chores, watching TV and reading. In the afternoon I visit various stores in the area looking for a laundry list of things I either need or thought about needing over the summer. So far I haven’t really bought anything. I need to develop a critical mass of information answering basic questions like do I really need/want something, what brand or model do I want and where do I want to buy it. Once I think I know the answers to those questions I surprise myself and actually buy something. I’ve always been a very analytical shopper, but not having access to lots of different stores the last few months have made my shopping approach a real bottleneck.

The highlight of today’s running around the valley was a stop a Bass Pro Shops. In addition to merchandise that is always interesting to look at Bass Pro Shops have fish tanks and stuff wild animals throughout the store. Walking around the store and checking out the displays is fun.

Mermaid in the Sliverton Casino Aquarium.

Mermaid interacting with the kids.

The Bass Pro Shops shares a building with the Silverton Casino which also has a big aquarium. They’re aquarium also has divers feed the fish for entertainment. Today the diver was joined by a mermaid. Later in the year the diver will be joined by Santa Claus. It is a big draw for the kids. Today the mermaid was interacting with the little kids watching her on the other side of the glass. She’d blow air bubbles for the kids and high five with them through the glass. It was fun to watch.

Thursday November 16th 2017

The weather today could only be described as wierd. It started cloudy with a light wind. The wind increased as the day progressed, but it also got warmer. The wind was out of the south and brought in warmth. By noon the “wind event” that had been forecast since Sunday was fully engaged. The wind was steady between fifteen and twenty miles and hour. Gusts were recorded near forty mph. The high temperature for the day was around eighty, but the cloud cover remained all day. The wind is forecast to continue all day tomorrow.

View out the front window of my car looking south this afternoon. The city of Henderson NV is in the valley below.

I spent the first half of the day around my RV home. I dumped the holding tanks and made sure everything outside was safe from blowing in the wind. Inside I took stock of my food supplies and determined that a grocery run was needed. I’ve been holding off as long as possible to get the timing right. I don’t want to have to visit a food store between now and Thanksgiving. It was bad enough today with the extra shoppers and the extra food stacked in the aisles.

During my travels around the Las Vegas valley today I was also back to looking for a replacement for my gas grill. The basic issue remains to find a small gas grill with enough quality to last more than a few uses. I’ve tried the normal places like Camping World, Home Depot and Lowes. Today I tried a Dicks Sporting Goods store. They had another possibility that I’d found in my online searches. They had a small Blackstone Griddle. It is more like a frying surface than a traditional grill, but it is a possibility. Tomorrow I’m going to visit Bass Pro Shops to see what they have.

My guess is I’ll have to go with a bigger grill than I currently have. The size of quality grills has increased in the last ten years or so. If I go with a Weber Q grill I’ll have to clean out space. That means moving stuff around or better yet throwing away stuff that I’m not using on a regular basis. A new grill will be bigger in size, but not much greater in weight so that’s a positive. Weight is the biggest enemy to keeping my RV home moving down the road safely.

Wednesday November 15th 2017

It was cloudy and cool most of the day. The sun broke through for a little while late in the day to get the temperature up to seventy, but overall it was an uninspiring day. I was back in shopping without buying mode today.

In my travels around the Las Vegas area I’m seeing a lot of preparations for Christmas. The middle of November is about the right time to start seeing Christmas lights but I haven’t been out after dark much. I’m seeing lots of light strings waiting to be turned on either at dusk or at some later date. The fact that I’m a visitor to the area is probably making me more sensitive to spotting the lights. I’m continuously looking for something new to see.

Today’s flower blossom picture.

A couple of weeks ago when I stopped at the Ethel M Chocolates Factory and Cactus garden all of the cactus were strung with lights for Christmas. There was a grand opening of the Christmas lights at the Cactus garden last week. I’ll go back to see the colorful display sometime soon.

When I was parked at the Las Vegas Speedway for the Aviation Nation Air and Space Expo there were many wire frames holding Christmas lights. They are part of a drive through Christmas lights display called Glittering Lights. This event started last week. There is a per car charge to drive through the display. At twenty dollars per car during the week it won’t get my business unless I find a few others to join me in the car. It is even higher on weekends and I can’t find any indication that the proceeds go to charity.

I was in a mall today that was already decorated for the holidays. They probably had them on the day after Halloween if not before. A couple of the casinos I stopped at have wrapped trees and columns with clear lights but haven’t turned them on yet. From my experience the casinos don’t go overboard with Christmas decorations. With a few exceptions the most you see are a few lights and a Christmas tree or two in a discrete location. The exceptions are the Bellagio Conservatory and similar display areas in other casinos.

Here at the RV Park I’m starting to see signs of decorating. The RV Park staff has strung lights on the clubhouse building, but they haven’t turned them on yet. Several of the RVs are starting to show the holiday spirit. I’ve seen some lights and at least one Christmas tree. It looks like there will be a lot of decorations for the end of year Holidays.

I will buy some cheap lights or a small fake tree for my Motorhome. I don’t carry them around the country with me. I’ve thrown them away after the new year the last couple of years. I do carry some ornaments and Christmas stuff that has sentimental/historical value to me. I’ll use some of those to add a little cheer to whatever I buy. I don’t expect to do anything before this time next week at the earliest.

Tuesday November 14th 2017

My energy level was up this morning and the symptoms of a cold were gone. The sun was also shining brightly so maybe that had some impact as well. From the sounds of things to come today was the last really nice day of the week. A cold front from the northwest is moving into the area.

Red Bull parachute jumper from the airshow Saturday.

The weather forecast for Wednesday night through Friday is for a high wind event. They have been forecasting winds with gusts exceeding forty miles an hour since Sunday. In the northeast, I’m used to the weather forecasters getting excited about rain and snowstorm forecasts. A wind event seems to be the desert southwest equivalent. The TV weather forecasters are getting very excited about the upcoming wind. I’ve experienced enough wind this summer that I consider myself an old had at wind now. Those maybe famous last words, but I’m not getting excited about the forecast.

I finally got the laundry done today. I got lucky and found an empty washing machine when I drove over to the laundry. The laundry was still very busy. I had to wait five minutes or so for a dryer. Overall it took about two hours from the time I left the rig until I got the clean clothes back in my storage draws. It really takes a big chunk of time out of the day to have to babysit the washing. Unfortunately it’s necessary. People come in and randomly open machines to find available machines or the machine they put their stuff in. That’s annoying enough, but they also seem to forget to restart the machine.

While I’m on my soapbox of annoying things. I”m tired of car horns beeping at all hours of the day and night. Why do people have their cars configured to beep the horn when they lock the door with their key fob. The beep “feature” is configurable on every car I’ve driven. In a densely packed area like this RV park horn beeps are a regular occurrence. On quiet days and during the night they are a real pain. At the very least a considerate person shouldn’t make the car beep in the middle of the night. OK, I’m finished with my soapbox speech.

Monday November 13th 2017

Yesterday’s cloud cover continued into today. The day started chilly in the low fifties. As the day progressed the clouds thinned allowing the sun to heat up the air into the low 70s. The inside of the RV got up to around 80 before darkness settled in. It will be back in the fifties or lower tonight.

For a change I found this pretty purple blossom on one of the bushes in the RV park.

Somewhere over the last few days I may have picked up a bug. This morning I resisted the idea of getting out of bed for a good hour. Once I got up, the sinus pressure I felt in bed turned into a runny nose. I started to fortify myself for a battle with a cold. As the day went by most of the symptoms went away, but I’m still on guard.

I spent the day reading and watching TV broken up by a couple of walks around the RV park. I checked the laundry on both walks. It was still very busy. There is supposed to be another laundry in the park that I have never checked out. It is way up by the main office which is very inconvenient. I’m really finding the run on the washing machines hard to understand. It’s only in the last week that it has been an issue and the park doesn’t seem to be any more populated.

Hopefully I’ll start the day tomorrow with more energy. I need to get back to the backlog of things on my wish and todo lists. After all that’s one of the reasons I’m stationary in Las Vegas for three months.

Sunday November 12th 2017

It was a cloudy day today. The high temperature was under 70 degrees. I’m glad I went to the air show yesterday. I think the clouds were low enough that it would have been difficult to find the planes at altitude.

Thunderbirds five and six just after a head on opposing pass.

I took more around 300 usable pictures and I deleted around 50 more that were nice pictures of empty sky. It is difficult to aim the camera in the glare of the bright sunshine. Often all I could do is point in the right general direction and click away. About half the time I got a usable picture. The rest were parts of aircraft, interesting cloud formations or blue sky.

Red Eagle Formation Team flying Soviet era Yak-52 trainers.

Vicky Benzing in a Red 1940 Boeing Stearman

I’m including a few more pictures from the air show in this blog entry. For most of these pictures I can provide a useful caption. One of the issues with this air show was that the aircraft on static display rarely had descriptive signage. If I didn’t already know what I was looking at I was out of luck. I’ve been to shows that were careful to make sure everything had a label. At this show it was guess work. This show did provide a newspaper with articles, ads and a map of the show grounds. I didn’t discover the content of the paper until I got home, but it wouldn’t have done much good. The map was lacking in detail and in many areas reflected a different idea than what actually happened. I also found reference to a smart phone App in the newspaper. It’s purpose was to provide updated information about the air show and on site announcements. A very good idea with poor execution. I checked out the App after the fact and found it had the same old information as the newspaper as well as a poor user interface.

This Coast Guard Helicopter was the most colorful air craft on the field.

Predator UAV

Plenty of Aviation Oil for the Warbirds.

Corsair with its wings folded

Spitfire and P51

C-17 transport

Part of the B-52 on display. It was hard to get far enough away for a good picture. Standing in the bomb bay was also an experience.

I spent the day in recovery mode. Yesterday’s air show really tired me out. My guess is that I walked around 5 miles between the show and the hike around the speedway parking lot. I also never got to sit down from the time I got out of the car until I got back to it six plus hours later. To recover I watched a lot of TV today. I made one attempt at the laundry, but once again it was full. If I was desperate for anything in the dirty clothes I’d try harder or probably just wait at the laundry for the next available machine. Tomorrow I’ll try again.

Saturday November 11th 2017

Today I went to the Aviation Nation Air and Space Expo at Nellis Air Force base. It was a long day and I came home exhausted.

They encouraged you to enter the air show by walking through the C-5.

I left home at eight this morning stopping on the way for breakfast and gas. I was in line to park at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway by 9am. Everyone parks at the speedway and passes through security screening before boarding buses for the approximately two mile run to the air base. Once at the air show security continued to be visible and I suspect invisible as well. Armed airmen were patrolling the grounds with combat weapons and some of them even had dogs. In a couple of areas they were even visible on the roofs of nearby hangers.

F-16 painted to honor victims of the October 1st shooting.

F-15 painted to honor victims of the October 1st shootings.

F-22

F-35

B-24

Stearman

At ten am the show opened with US Air Force Academy cadets parachuting in with American Flag and the service flags. Prior to the opening I wandered around the static aircraft displays. Since it was located on an air force base and was celebrating the 70 anniversary of the Air Force, it is not surprising that most of the aircraft on display were Air Force. Active Naval aircraft were not present although naval war birds were. I also saw a Coast Guard Helicopter, a local News Helicopter and a National Parks service amphibious plane.

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This show had action on the flight line scheduled from the opening ceremony until the US Air Force Thunderbirds were through flying after 3PM. I’m used to air shows that squeeze most of the flying into a shorter period of time and allow more time to see the static exhibits. At this show you needed to tour the static displays while watching the action in the air.

B-29 FiFi

E-3a

B-1B

One highlight of the show for me was a demonstration of air defense centered around a scenario of an attach on an airbase. It started with a couple of F-16 aircraft from the aggressor squadron simulating an attach. F-15s joined the fight and then two F-35s borrowed from the test and evaluation squadron gave chase. Obviously no air to air missiles were fired but plenty of flares were ejected to simulate counter measures. While those aircraft were out of the area helicopters and A-10 Thunderbolts came in for ground support. It really was a good demonstration of air power complete with explosions, fire and smoke.

Heritage Flight. P51, 2 A10s and an F-22

The heritage flight which highlights aircraft from various eras flying together wasn’t as good as some I’ve seen. This one was lead by a P51 with an A-10 on each wing. The slot was filled by the F-22 demo aircraft. Given the aircraft they had flying at this show it was an OK selection, but I’ve seen heritage flights with the Korean and Vietnam eras better represented.

The Thunderbirds close the flying part of the show. They were schedule to go on at 2PM. Most of the other flying was finished around 1:30. They had sweepers out on the active runway removing some of the desert accumulation before the Thuderbirds started at 2PM. They have an elaborated ground preparation that is part of their show. If you aren’t in the immediate area of their F-16s or near one of the video displays it is easily missed. I was getting tired by this point so I started back toward the bus pickup area. I watched the first part of the Thunderbirds show from the end of the flight line then boarded a bus back to the speedway. I’ve seen the Thuderbirds and the Blue Angles several times. They’re the best but they aren’t why I visit airshows. It’s all the other stuff.

Thunderbirds getting ready for their show

Four of six Thunderbirds flying by.

My adventure for the day wasn’t over. I took the wrong bus back to the speedway. There were blue flags all around where I loaded onto the bus this morning. I assumed I was in the blue bus area. Wrong! The Blue bus area was on the other side of the speedway. I was in the Red bus area. The walk around the speedway to get back to my car was interesting, but not something I needed at the end of a long day. Traffic leaving the area was also a pain in the you know what.