Sue's new Smartphone

Today is our last day here at Ft. Lewis and we're trying to finish up some things.

When we were in Canada on our way back south, we were having trouble using our cell phones. When Mike was talking with a Verizon tech, he told Mike that he needed to take his cell phone in to a Verizon corporate store and have the software updated.

This morning we drove into Lakewood to a Verizon store and had his phone's software updated. Mike's also had problems with the battery in his cell phone running down a lot quicker than my phone. We were told it was probably because the phone's firmware hadn't been updated and the phone kept trying to connect.

While we were there we updated to a Verizon MiFi broadband aircard that is 4G where the one we have is 3G. It works out that with rebates and discounts, the new aircard will cost us $20.

Then we were told we could $100 off on a Smartphone and we started looking at them. Long story short, I am now a proud owner of a Motorola DROID Bionic Phone. Of course, we also had to purchase a car charger and a cover for it.

Mike really likes the Droid commercials and picked out the Motorola phone. He doesn't want a smartphone for himself - says it's too complicated for him. But I'm sure he'll be playing around with this one. Mike is usually the cell phone person in our household - I do the computers so it will be fun using the Bionic phone.

From Ft. Lewis RV Park

We didn't get back to the RV until almost 2:00. After a quick lunch, I went down to the laundry here to wash a few loads before we leave.

I took my laptop to the laundry and I used the campground's wi-fi while I was waiting on the laundry. I worked on getting our blog and web albums update.

Mike got our new Verizon MiFi working and played around with my new phone while I was doing laundry.

I haven't had much time to get acquainted with my phone yet, but I did get my contacts downloaded and few things set-up.

I am REALLY happy to say that our blog is caught up and so are our photo albums. I've had a problem with our 2011 Travel Map showing the last few places we've stayed and I hope to get it fixed shortly

Camping World, Olive Garden and photos of new tow bar

This morning Mike took photos of the campground and our new tow bar.

From Ft. Lewis RV Park

From Ft. Lewis RV Park

From Ft. Lewis RV Park

This afternoon we drove up to Camping World in Fife for a new air filter and oil filter for our Onan generator and some cleaning supplies.

We then drove up to a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Federal Way to get a new Wal-Mart Road Atlas. Of course, we bought some other items, but no Wal-Mart Road Atlas. They didn't have any atlases, just maps.

Since we were only a couple of blocks from an Olive Garden and it was almost 5:00, we went there for dinner.

We decided to sit a table in bar area and ordered Sam Adams Octoberfest on tap. For dinner we both ordered the Never Ending Pasta Bowl. Mike had the whole wheat linguine with Pizzaiola Meat Sauce and meatballs. I ordered the fettuccine with Pizzaiola Meat Sauce. We both really like the Pizzaiola Meat Sauce and will definitely order it again.

After dinner we came back to the RV and I worked on our blog and photos. Mike worked on planning our trip when we leave here and head east.

New Roadmaster Tow Bar

On August 25 Mike had ordered a Roadmaster Falcon All Terrain tow bar, a tow bar cover and an electrical cord from HitchFinder in Minnesota and we would be able to pick them up at the factory in Vancouver.

The tow bar was on back order for internet orders and it was going to be mid-September before we could get it. Mike talked with Deanna on yesterday and she was going to talk with the warehouse supervisor to see if they could pull a tow bar from production so we could get it earlier.

We got a call this morning from Roadmaster that we could come down to their factory in Vancouver and pick up our new tow bar. So after breakfast we headed down to the Roadmaster factory in Vancouver which is 120 miles south of here.

When we were about 20 miles north of Vancouver, we stopped at a McDonald's at Woodland for lunch and since we were near a Safeway, I went in to look for a couple of items I hadn't been able to find at the commissary.

When we got to Roadmaster we went to the office and we were directed to go the Installation section where we picked up the tow bar, cover and electric cable.

On the way back to Ft. Lewis we stopped at the Safeway at Woodland again to get gas in the Vue ($3.769 a gal).

After we got back to the campground, Mike took our old tow bar off the receiver hitch and put our new tow bar on.

We still haven't taken any photos here at the campground, we'll have to do that tomorrow.

New Koni shocks installed

We got up at 7:00 this morning and Mike walked over to the office here at Brazel's a little after 8:00 to let them know we are here for our 10:00 appointment to have new shocks installed.

We stowed the slides and Mike had disconnected the water and we waited for a technician to walk over to drive the motorhome into one of the bays.

While we were waiting for our appointment, Mike called the Ft. Lewis RV Park office and made a reservation for us for a week starting today when we leave Brazel's.

Tinker couldn't understand why we were just sitting around on the sofa and not going anywhere since the RV was all ready to start driving.

From Trip to Brazel's RV Performance

Since we weren't going anywhere, Tinker decided to go sit up on the dash or "the sun porch" as we call it.

From Trip to Brazel's RV Performance

A little after 10:30 a technician came over with an armload of plastic sheets that he laid down on the steps and carpet for him to walk on. He then did a walk-around to be sure everything was disconnected (Mike had already disconnected the electric cord) and that he wouldn't drive over anything.

We left Tinker in his crate in the RV and Mike and I went into the office to sit in the waiting room there. Mike went out to take photos of Rob installing the Koni FSD shocks.

From Trip to Brazel's RV Performance

From Trip to Brazel's RV Performance

From Trip to Brazel's RV Performance

It took about an hour to have the old shocks removed and the new ones installed. Our bill for the new shocks came to $1105.00.

Before we left Brazel's we had our on-board and  2 portable propane tanks filled for $2.75 a gallon. We left Brazel's at 12:15 and passed by the Great Wolf Lodge on the way to I-5.

From Trip to Brazel's RV Performance

We stopped at a rest area near Sunnydale at 12:30 to fix lunch and were back on the road by 1:00.

We got back to McChord AFB at 2:00 and stopped at the gas station to get gas in the RV ($3.839 a gal) before driving out to the FamCamp to get the car.  We then drove south on I-5 to the Ft. Lewis North Gate.

We checked in at the office and were assigned site #102 on Loop 100. We have full hook-ups (50 amp) and we are 2 sites over from The Commons which houses the bathrooms/showers, laundry and wireless internet station.

We're paying $22.50 a day here at Ft. Lewis RV Park.

Trip to Brazel's RV Performance

Yesterday morning Mike and I drove to the BX to wi-fi in the Food Court. We got a couple of cinnamon rolls and coffee from Starbuck's to have for breakfast.

This morning we left the FamCamp at 10:25 to go down to Brazel's RV Performance in Centralia where we have an appointment for tomorrow to have new shocks installed on the RV.

We left the Vue at the FamCamp where we had the RV parked. Since the car is technically in storage, all we had to pay is $1 for a day's storage.

We parked at the Commissary and I went in to buy a few groceries that we needed and then we ate lunch before we left. We left McChord AFB at 11:30 and drove south on I-5 to Brazel's RV Performance in Centralia.

From Trip to Brazel's RV Performance

Brazel's RV Performance also has a campground on the premises with electric and water hook-ups and a dump station. We arrived at Brazel's at 2:00 and picked out campsite #8.

From Trip to Brazel's RV Performance

We have 50 amp electric and free wi-fi. When Mike called to set up our appointment here, he forgot to ask about logging in to the wi-fi and it turns out we needed a password. We do have the Verizon MiFi aircard, but I had a lot of photos to upload to our web albums and we wanted to use their wi-fi here instead of using up a lot of our 5GB allotment.

There are a few RVs here in the campground, but we haven't found anyone at home. Later this afternoon a guy drove up to one of the RVs and Mike asked him about the password for the wi-fi. He gave Mike a phone number to call and we were able to get the password.

We spent the rest of today watching TV and I worked on catching up on our blog and web albums.

Five Guys Burgers, Museum of Flight & Space Needle

We've spent the last 2 days catching up on things around the RV and paying bills and grocery shopping. I've also been going over to the Food Court at the BX to wi-fi because the Verizon broadband signal is very weak at the campground. Our cell phone service is also weak out there.

We left the campground around 10:30 and stopped at the base gas station to get gas in the Vue ($3.839 a gal) before heading up to Seattle to visit the Museum of Flight and the Space Needle.

In addition to programming our Garmin gps for the Museum of Flight and the Space Needle, I had also entered the address for the Five Guys Burgers in Renton. We've been craving a hamburger from Five Guys since we crossed the border into Washington. The address for Five Guys is on N. 10th Place in Renton and when we got there all we saw was an industrial area and no Five Guys. We wandered around a bit before stopping at a Brown Bear car wash to have the car washed.

We asked one of the workers where Five Guys was located and he gave us directions. It turns out that there are 2 N. 10th Places and Garmin sent us to the wrong one! We found Five Guys in The Landings (a really neat shopping complex) and thoroughly enjoyed our bacon cheese burgers and fries.

After lunch we drove over to the Museum of Flight which is located next to Boeing Field-King County International Airport. The museum is housed in a very impressive glass building.

From Museum of Flight

After paying the senior admittance of $14 each and receiving a map of the museum, we entered the Great Gallery which is a 6-story glass and steel exhibit area just full of aircraft that shows the history of flight.

From Museum of Flight

We next visited the Space Gallery chronicling the history of space flight.

From Museum of Flight

We stopped at the Boeing Red Barn which was the Boeing Company's original manufacturing plant. In the Red Barn we saw a re-created factory workshop and artifacts from the earliest days of aviation including a copy of Orville and Wilbur Wright's Letter of Patent for their Flying Machine.

From Museum of Flight

The next exhibit was the J. Elroy McCaw Personal Courage Wing which has exhibits covering World War I

From Museum of Flight

and World War II.

From Museum of Flight

We walked across the T. Evans Wyckoff Memorial Bridge over to the Airpark.

From Museum of Flight

At the Airpark we were able to walk through a Concorde

From Museum of Flight

and then we boarded the first Presidential jet plane "Air Force One" for Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon.

From Museum of Flight

We've visited a number of aviation museums and we both agreed that the Museum of Flight has to be one of the best museums we've visited.

We had a great view of Mt. Rainier when we left the museum.

From Seattle

We then drove up to the Space Needle and the area was packed with people. We drove around looking for a place to park and found place on the street a few blocks away from the Space Needle. The rate for parking was $2 a hour and after feeding in all of our change (we didn't want to use a credit card), we had 1 hour 25 minutes.

From Seattle

We walked up to the Space Needle and got in the ticket line a little after 3:30 and found out the wait to go up the Space Needle was 40 minutes and that didn't include the wait in line to buy a ticket. The price for senior tickets is $16 each. Since it was so late in the afternoon, we decided to pass on riding up to the Observation Deck today since we still had an hour's drive back to McChord.

From Seattle

We did visit the Gift Shop and bought some postcards and a couple of souvenirs. There are so many things to see and visit here in Seattle that we'll just have to come back another time and spend more time here.

We got back to the FamCamp at 5:00 and Mike took photos of the dry camping area where we're staying. It is also the storage area and you just pick a vacant spot and park. There are a few sites with numbers but the majority of the area has no campsite numbers.

From McChord AFB

You can see by this photo how tall the trees are here at the FamCamp. The RVs look like toys next to the trees.

From McChord AFB

Ferndale to McChord AFB

We got up at 7 a.am. and after breakfast prepared to leave The Cedars RV Resort. Just as we started to hitch up the car, it started sprinkling. We left the campground at 8:35 and headed south on I-5 driving in a light rain.

We stopped at a rest area about 10 miles north of Burlington a little after 9:00 to walk Tinker and for Mike to do his walk-around of the RV. The rain had quit by the time we left the rest area.

We drove through Seattle

From Ferndale to McChord AFB

and saw the Space Needle

From Ferndale to McChord AFB

and the Museum of Flight.

From Ferndale to McChord AFB

We arrived at the Bridgeport Road gate to McChord AFB at 11:20. Our Ft. Rucker vehicle registration decals had expired this summer and the security guard wouldn’t let us continue to the FamCamp until we had new decals. Mike got our vehicle registrations and insurance cards and walked back to the Visitor Center next to the gate to get new decals. When we were at Elmendorf AFB we inquired about getting new decals, but they didn’t issue vehicle decals since everyone has to show their ID card to get on base. We didn’t think anymore about having expired decals until we got here.

Mike forgot that he had to scrape off the old decals and turn them in when he went to get the new decals. So Mike came back to the RV and scraped the decals off of the RV and the Vue and then went back to the Visitor Center to get our new decals.

We stopped at the base gas station and got gas in the RV (26.533 gal @ $3.769 a gal) before driving out to Holiday Park FamCamp.

We had decided to stay in the dry-camping area so we could receive satellite TV. We had heard there was no satellite TV reception in the area with hook-ups because of all the trees.

The dry camping area is also the RV storage area. It is a large open field that is surrounded by trees. We found a spot to park and set up the RV. We are paying $5 a day to stay here and we’ll be here for 5 days.

Mike called the Post Office in Lakewood to see if our mail had come in to General Delivery. It turns out that General Delivery mail goes to the main Tacoma Post Office. We had chosen Lakewood because it’s the closest town near here. We normally call the local post office and check to make sure that they receive General Deliver mail, but Mike forgot to call the one in Lakewood to see if they take General Delivery.

The lady at the Lakewood Post Office wasn’t sure what would happen when our mail came in – if it would be sent back to Pensacola or if it would be forwarded to the main Tacoma Post Office. She called us back and told Mike that our mail was at the Tacoma Post Office. Thank Goodness!

We put the Tacoma post office address in our Garmin and drove into Tacoma to pick up our mail.

From Ferndale to McChord AFB

The last time we had gotten mail sent to us was when we were in Anchorage a month ago. We got the checks from our insurance company for the RV windshield repair we had done in Whitehorse and for the new receiver hitch we had put on in Haines.

We stopped at the commissary on our way back to the RV to buy groceries. I have been only buying a few groceries up to now because I was waiting to stock up when we got here.

The FamCamp is near the airfield and on the way back to the RV from the commissary, we saw this C-17 cargo plane practicing touch-and-go landings.

From McChord AFB