No more feeding the Burros

This summer we took our grandson to Oatman here in Arizona. Anyone that has been to Oatman, or is familiar with Oatman knows that they are famous for the Burros that come to town everyday looking for a handout from the tourists.

Even the merchants sell carrots for feeding the small donkeys. Well no more. I guess someone did a study and found the burros that are hand fed carrots all day are not as healthy as they would be if they were to venture out and rummage the desert for food on their own. The merchants have been asked to no longer sell carrots for feeding the burros and signs have been erected around town to not feed the animals. I will expect this may be a big blow on the tourist trade in Oatman since the burros will soon no longer come to town in hopes for an easy meal.

Monsoon

Friday we had a sever weather warning for unseasonably high temperatures. Saturday we had a nice rainstorm come through. Tonight we had a sever thunderstorm pass over. Usually storms go around Havasu. In fact most of the storms today did just that as seen in these photo.


Note the frowns on the palms. The wind was blowing mighty hard.

Then one hit just about dinnertime. We sat at our dinette and watched out the window as it came over. For a while there I thought we were going to loose a window to the nickel sized hail. The wind was slamming the hail against the window pretty hard. We watched as our patio furniture slid across the patio into the motorhome and Susan’s favorite pot blew over and cracked even though I had a pretty good size rock in the bottom. After the mayhem we were treated to a lightning show that rivals a good fireworks show. I went out and snapped a bunch of pictures in hopes to get some shots.





I missed the million dollar shot of a big lightning bolt going right through a rainbow. That was cool.

It’s Still Hot

Yeah, we are back in Havasu. We took off last Wednesday morning about 8:00a and arrived in Havasu around 1:30P. Not much has changed here in Havasu. It’s still hot, about 110° today, and there is still no one here at the resort. Our plants are struggling from the heat so it’s a good thing we came back. I will have to soak them real good to see if I can bring them back. I think they will survive. We will be here for a few weeks then it’s back to the coast.

As you may know from our previous posts, it seems every time we come to Havasu we pick a mouse or two. I have always taken the reactive approach, this time I am taking the proactive approach. I have set traps at the most likely entrances and one under the kitchen counter. We will see if they are brave enough to invade us again.

Getting ready

I like my MiFi. So far it has worked flawlessly. It will be interesting to see how well it will work in Lake Havasu since the Verizon Broadband signal comes from across the lake and it can be hard to lock on to at times. The good thing is I can put the MiFi just about anywhere since I connect to it wireless. This means I will be able to place it where it gets the best signal.

We are about ready to head back to Lake Havasu. We have sat here long enough and are anxious to get back. It has cooled down to below 110° out there so it might be a little more tolerable. The manager at the resort called to tell us our plants are struggling so he will turn up the water a bit. It’s nice to have someone keeping an eye on things. So far it looks like Wednesday is travel day but you know how things change. Why Wednesday you say? Well because since there are no sewer connections here we have to put things away, pull in the slides, pull up the jacks, and driver over to the dump station once a week. Wednesday is a good day because we can get it done before all the weekenders get here.

Isn’t Technology great

It can also give you a big headache. Since my computer has been spending more time down than up and I am tired of having to fix it often, I went out and bought a new laptop. I am no longer the power user I used to be so I elected to get a computer just to keep records, cruise the Internet, and email. I found a nice Toshiba for $300. The problem is, PCICMA or PC Card as they also call it is no longer popular so they do not include a PC Card slot in these computers. Since my Verizon aircard is a PC Card it is useless with my new computer. It turns out I am due for a free upgrade with a new 2 year contract with Verizon so I started looking at the best fit for the new computer. What I found is this new MiFi card.

No I spelled it right…It’s MiFi. This is a battery powered aircard with a built in WiFi router capable of connecting 5 wireless devices to the Internet at one time. Since the old computer is still running (some what) Susan can connect to the Internet at the same time I am connected using WiFi. As you can see it is no bigger than a ½ deck of cards. You can slip it in your shirt pocket and have a WiFi router everywhere you go. Now comes the problem. I pulled it out of its box, hooked it to my new computer and set it up. Then I unplugged it and connected wireless. Everything worked great…until I tried to connect with my old computer. Seems the security measures they are now using are way too sophisticated for my old computer’s WiFi card. I consulted the Internet for a solution. Seem a lot of others are having this problem and a lot of them had solutions but none worked for me. After hours of thinking I knew everything I finally gave in and called Verizon Tech Support. Well it turns out I do know everything, at least more than Verizon Tech Support does. After over an hour on the phone with 3 guys from Verizon I said goodbye. Back to the Internet for help I went. Still no help so I dove in to the setup of the MiFi. After a while of trial and error I found a happy medium where now both computers are happy and connected to the MiFi.

Pretty Cool!

It’s getting’ better

I mentioned in my last post how I feel about Windows Vista operating system. Well It’s getting better. I am starting to get use to the difference and have searched the Internet for ideas on how to tweak the things I don’t like. I have changed every setting I can find to the “classic” setting and that helped a lot. I even found ways to load most of my old software even though it is not supposed to be compatible and it all seems to be working so far. If I was one that is satisfied with the “right out of the box” look and feel, it would probably be fine, but I have always liked to tweak things to my liking.