23 Days Til The Rally

Yep, we're wrapping up things here at the ole' homestead getting ready to head west to Albuquerque for "The Rally". Of course since we have the Damon Motor Coach instead of the travel trailer now, there will be some changes there....especially after Key demonstrated how serious he was about going after any stray cattle we might pass. That won't happen again! Another big change......is not driving the Tahoe. She's gonna stay home. We have been trying to figure out what we wanted to do about a toad....a vehicle to tow behind the motor home, but we could not find the right kind, in our budget, so at those places where we will stay a few days at a time we will stop before we get to the RV park and pick up a rent car. We already have our reservations set up for those stops. Another big change (for me) is the navigational system in the Tahoe. I loved driving the Tahoe. To me....its the best car I ever drove and the navigational system was fantastic. So since the Damon has such a wide flat surface on the dash, I decided to bring the laptop (like I always do) except use it for navigation. The system I decided on is the Delorme Street Atlas 2009 GPS navigational system. Any one that has a laptop knows how terrible the brightness is on the screen in sunshine. Partially solved that problem with a fold over sun shade but the other thing I needed is a second monitor...the laptop is 6' away from the driver's seat and the size of most GPS monitors didn't give me a big enough screen. I decided on the Xenarc Technologies 7" screen that hooks up at the serial port on the laptop. It works great! I tried it out a few times in the Tahoe and actually we used it in the motor home when we went to Kemah. Here's a shot of it (above) in the Tahoe when I was going through Austin, Texas after I left the Paintball Contest. (Click on the photo for a larger view)

We've done a few other things and I'll get to those as we move along.

That's all for now.