Well its all set up and we are getting a 63 this morning. It has been a good signal since thursday. Yea! We will be moving monday and I hope it will keep the signal till then.

We had to make a trip to Walmart in Hastings friday and buy food. The meat here was not the best looking and all the prices are a bit high, more than we want to pay. I put gas in the car at $2.66.9 friday morning and it was $34.00. We will see what the prices are on the way to Hastings.

Made it back from Walmart with $143.00 in food and some cash. It was a bit longer than first thought. some 53 miles one way. And gas is the same price all the way up there. It didnt get any cheaper on the way back. Filling the mh tank with over 35 gallons at $2.66.9 will be expensive. We will check the mpg on this tank and see how we are doing. In may we spent $675.49 in gas, $252.85 in june, $593.00 in july, and the mileage for the mh was 69,462. We started with 66,664 the day we got the mh. We have paid $1.89.9 for gas. The highest so far has been $2.34.9 as I recall. The blog may say different and that will be the highest. So far for aug, we have sent $117.00 and have 71,716 miles on the rv.

We are swapping our rv parking with our gas in the budget. The gas will be low and the parking will be higher. For example, we spent $174.85 for parking in may, $253.26 in june, $99.50 in july and $35.50 so far for august. The more gas costs, the less we drive and the more we park, free to cheap where possible. On our very limited income, SSi only, we have to be a "free loader" when we can. Better planing next year will allow us to seek more free parking, cheaper rv campgrounds and boondocking. With our 2, 120 watt solar panels feeding the new 6 v batteries, 2-115 amp and 4-145 amp, we can park with sunshine for days. We do have to run the genset in the am and pm to get the batteries to full charge. There is not many places in this part of the world to boondock. Next year, plans are to go west.

Other tidbits from the budget, eat out $143.81 in may, $128.49 in june, $147.39 in july, and $71.83 so far in august. Rv repairs and maintance, inluding new parts, $850.69 in may, $990.37 in june, $75.50 in july, none so far in aug. We had a new brake controller installed and then replaced, new 6v batteries, a/c freon (and baby its COLD now), oil change, coolant overflow bottle, and bought some tools and a air compressor for the tires. Getting air for the tires was next to impossible. Was not reachable for us. We also bought a new double wire for the dish that I will install under the coach. This will allow placing of the dish at the front or rear and not have to do any wire disconnects in the coach or run the wire thru an open window.. The modem and router will be permently fixed and wired to the incoming wires at a splitter. The inside will be much neater and we can get rid of the box at our feet. And we still got to much stuff. Some of it will go to the kids and some of it will be donated.

More tid bits of our spending as we go. If and when I set up a page, I'll post the budget for all to see. Let me just say, it will cost a lot more the first couple of months and then it will still be more than you think. To all that add in the rising cost of fuel you buy and the increase in prices due to rising oil prices. The days of cheap fuel are gone and if those in the know are right, it will be $3-4 dollars soon. Most of the cost increase now is world events. In the very near future it will be because the easy oil has been gotten, now we have to pay for the more difficult oil to be reached.

This is what the cat does when its raining or something has scared him. He runs and gets under the passenger seat and hides.

The signal had been good since we came here and first setup the dish. We worked and worked to get a better signal but to no avail. There was no limbs in our line of sight, no obstructions at all. The only thing that could be a problem would be that we were aiming ove the back of the rv. And it may be that the tall trees were diffusing the signal enough that we were not goingto get any better. Our decision was to move the dishand see what effect this had.

This move we did. We moved the disc about 5 ft and started over. The best signal we could get was a 64. This was good enough we hoped to pass the test. And it did! We unwired the opi and removed the align-a-sight and hoped that the signal would be good. There was nothing else we could do.

Shirley yelled out to me that we had all five lights, we had a good signal. This is very important to us since we have no cellphone service. We can be contacted and we can contact our families via email. And yes, if its a dier emergency, there is always a pay phone.

The second pic is inside the coach with rain coming down. Tho this pic was taken during the last rain storm. it was valid for friday afternoon as it rained again.

Here is another Victorian home. We spent all thursday morning and into the mid afternoon with our satellite. When we went to bed we were seeing a loose of signal. I had the new wires in place and we could not get better than a 60. Most of the time the signal was running 57-60.




We have a device the seats on the top of the dish called an align-a-sight. This device sets the dish elevation, angle relative to north and the dish skew. the other device we have is called an outdoor pointing device, or opi. This measures the signal strength.

The signal displayed on the computer screen has to be high enough to pass a cross pole test. The strenght has to be above 62 to pass. We were getting low to mid 50's all morning. All failures. We tried switching wires to no avail. We did find the strength with the opi in place was in the 59-62 range and when we took iy off, the signal dropped to 30 or less. The opi has a filter and is wired between the lnb and the modem. We take both devices off after passing the test to keep them from being stolen.

I was watching tv, "so you thought you could dance", when I looked up and saw this day ending sun set. Since I had the camera nearby, it was picture time. Nothing else to add as the picture says it all.

This is an early look at the day from our home. It started raining. Our plans were to unhook and empty the tanks this morning. But the rain came early instead.
As you can see the picknick table is wet on both sides of the table covering.




And a look thru the windshield tells all. Its raining cats and dogs. It will be later on this morning when we get a break that we will be able to dump the tanks. Theres not alot else to say.
Rain, rain go away. Come again some other day.

Here is two of the Victorian homes in Superior. The first and second pics are of the same house from two views. Most of the large homes are three floors and a basement. Most of the single story homes also have a basement. There are a few single story homes without a basement, but very few. The frost line here is several feet deep and there has to be a place for the water pipes in the home to keep them from freezing.


Not shown is the church buildging next to this. Its left of the tree but not in the pic.







We drove up and down the streets here and took pics of the homes we thought were the prettiest. All of these and those we did not take pics of had plaques in front stating the date the home was built, the first resident and the current resident. I will be posting more as time goes by. Got to have something to post on those slow days.

Now there is a little story behind these pics. It seems my dear, sweet wife wanted to take pics of the two of us and so out came the camera and outside we went. The table was covered and the bbq was already placed on the table. We put the bbq under the rv at night in case it rains. The bbq holds water and has started to rust inside.

And out also came the tripod and the session began. As you can tell, it was a bright and sunny day. Two pics were taken of us with full sunlight and let me tell you it was bright.

After some discussion we decided to put the awning down and see if that was better. It did shade our eyes and we tried one more pic. I must say that the shade felt better on the eyes but did it make a worse pic? You decide which is the better. I like the shaded one.

We finally got to play golf. We went to the Superior course and paid our fee and got the cart and teed off on the first hole. There is a practice green and a driving tange, didnt use the range. Hit the first ball and it leaked right.

Now I played in Wessington Springs and Thadford and did not have this trouble. The balls all went straight and none of them went right. Not a slice, just right. With a no practice status that I'm on, its a wonder I can even hit the golf ball at all. There are few driving ranges available where we go. And the our limited budget, even playing golf is a privilege. The cost was $22.00 here and about the same at the other two places. That was for 9 holes.

Anyway, had a good time. Once the cart got replaced on the second hole, had a 560+ yard walk to go back to get another cart. Lost 3 balls (two into the stream), hit one into the lake (hit it off the toe) and found one. So it was not to bad. The stream runs through the course. Two of the balls rolled into the stream and were gone. The water was slightly muddy from the rain so it disappeared.

I finally did hit a straight drive and watched it go. When I got up to where it should be, here is this lake. Oh no I said, it went into the lake. But, no, it stopped about 20 ft short. Just right as a tree now prevented me from going to the green. Would have been on in 2.

The one I did hit into this lake was from #9 tee box and it came off the toe of a 3 wood. The second ball went straight and down the fairway. The second shot hit the green from 90 yards and rolled off the back side. A pitch and a putt and a bogy!

Had a good time and will play it again. Now that I know what to look for, I will do my best to not lose any golf balls. A lost ball is worth a dollar. A found ball is worth a dollar too. For the golfers, there is a par three of 226 yds and another of 201 yds. A hill course with link style greens.

What does this look like to you? I did take the pics thru the rv windshield and got this reflection. But it does look like horse shoes to me. Yep, its horse shoes. This group of older people brought their picknick lunch and had an afternoon of fun. they stayed for several hours.

Today the sun is shinning. We will be able to get out and enjoy it. Nothing worse than being couped up and not able to get out because of the weather. But not today. Visit this town by following this link There is lots to see here.

I went to the golf course and guess what! They had a tournment going. No golf today. Will try tomorrow. And we will go look at the 80 some houses listed in the records of historical homes of the Victorian era. The ones we have seen are very pretty. See if we cant get some pics for ya. This is day 6 of 14 days. The new cable arrived and is in place. Shirley and I are looking at where to put the plate for connecting the tx and rx cables from the satellite. Once this is done, we can buy the rest of the parts and finish this.