Are we becoming “NoDaks”???

Posted on November 8, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

Lyle, the engineer on the tallest broadcast tower in America told Allen and the guys yesterday that they were going to turn into true NoDaks before we get out of here. Yikes! I think he means that they are going to somehow adapt to the crazy cold and windy weather that all the locals keep describing as “nice”. That’s not the term I would use!!

Yesterday I met the maintenance man for Hillsboro Campground and Motel. He moved his camper down to the insulated water spicket section. Everyone is kind of huddling together now the temps are dropping below freezing. I didn’t catch this gentleman’s name so I’ll just refer to him as Lyle #2 for now. Lyle #2 works on the beet farm then does maintenance type things for the motel and campground. He’s done this for 5 years. He’s 71. He got his first motorcycle in 2010 (a Harley that he quickly swapped for a Honda that wants to be a crotch rocket that he now loves, even has the jacket to prove it.) He had a travel trailer for thirty years until recently he traded that for a 27′ fifth wheel. He misses the travel trailer.

Lyle #2 said that he put all the “new” spots in back in September and did them all in less than 2 weeks because they had 71 campers here for the beet farm! I can’t imagine that many campers in this park! But I could see it being nice in the summer.
But the rush to get the spots built explains the super soft gravel and mud. (And also the catty-wompus way the electric and water hookups are in the middle of the yards) Lyle #2 said these 71 units were mostly class A’s with retired folks, this group is called a “Camp Force”, and they left here October 15 to head to Amazon to work for Christmas. Then they go out to California to work another farm, come back this way for potatoes then the beets again. But Lyle #2 isn’t sure if they will all be back next year because the beet farm didn’t pay the premium price and some of them didn’t even make their expenses.

I found my conversation with Lyle #2 to be very interesting. I’d never heard of a “Camp Force” before. I’ve heard of full time RVers going to work for Amazon but not necessarily traveling as a group and going from farm to farm for the different harvests. Anyhow, Lyle #2 was on his way to shut the water off in the “old” section of the park so I headed back inside with Charlie to thaw out our hands and paws! We have not become No-Daks quite yet!

I AM really starting to like this town. I had a feeling I would before we got here. Wednesday, Allen got off early because of nasty weather, so we went over to Granny’s (the local watering hole) to see if we could find somewhere to watch the Thursday Night Football game. We wanted to avoid driving all the way to Grand Forks (35miles) in snowy weather if at all possible. Jackie is the bartender at Granny’s most of the time and she was very friendly. They have free popcorn too! But their TV’s are kind of small so we wanted to check out Reno’s also (the local sports bar). Jackie described it as a little more modern.

Reno’s was a lot newer yet not as cozy. But still, Reno was very friendly and said he would definitely have the game on for us. They also have a full menu (mostly fried appetizers and burgers) and we need to eat when we drink!

So we headed back to Reno’s Thursday night and watched the Bengals go 8-0 for the first time in history!

A local guy bought us some shots. Jackie showed up to chat a bit. I made a plan to take Charlie to Granny’s for the 8am Happy Hour Saturday morning (didn’t happen!) (and yes, 8-9am is Happy Hour for all the guys that work at the beet plant) and I also got the OKAY to have mail sent to Reno’s. (The campground is kind of weird for mail and they just have a box on the street that nobody checks regularly). So it turned out to be a great night. Allen was sufficiently late to work Friday while re-evaluating his life choices and Charlie woke up with her Bengals shirt half on/half off… Just goes to show our first major outing in town was a fun one!

We also stopped by Olsen Hardware, NAPA, and the lumber store looking for one of those boot brush cleaner thingies that you put outside… No luck… Our garage is seriously a mud room now! I got to run into Uniquely Yours Craft Boutique while Allen picked up an adapter for our air pump. We couldn’t reach the dually tire valves without it. I found some wooded salt and pepper shakers that I think are super cute! I was looking for metal ones, but no luck there.

Allen is working today (Sunday) as well as yesterday since they had that weather day. But the next day off we are going to go into Grand Forks to Walmart and stock up on some food. Dale’s Food Pride (local grocery) is almost as expensive as San Francisco and I’m over that! But I guess they can charge whatever they want since they are the only place around.

Yesterday I made my first loaf of Pumpernickel Rye Bread and I think it came out really good. I do want to get some caraway though to add and I think that would boost the flavor a bit more. I’ll wait to get Allen’s opinion before I post the recipe. But if I do it will be here, along with the Hillbilly Chili and Chili Bread I’m making today! Perfect for a chilly football Sunday… Cheers!

***Pumpernickel Rye Bread recipe

Fantastic Chili Bread!

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

I think I want this bread with a big bowl of chili for my last meal! It is SO good!

I made this chili bread yesterday with my Hillbilly Chili for dinner and Allen and I ate almost the whole loaf! We didn’t even bother to take the kneading paddle out, we just tore off chunks at a time…

I found the recipe on this website. It’s full of recipes for the bread machine. I’ve tried a few of them, and most work out, while some are complete failures (i.e.: Lemonade Bread!)

I was a little worried because it doesn’t call for any sugar, but beer has sugar in it… I modified the recipe a little bit to fit what I had available… Here’s what I did:

3/4 cup + 2 tbs Budweiser (any beer would probably work, I actually think a darker hoppier beer would probably be delicious) *I used warm, room temp beer.
1 tsp instant chicken bouillon (or, 1 cube crushed up very finely)
1/4 tsp ground cayenne
1/4 tsp hot chili oil (I usually find this in the Asian section with sesame oil)
1 tbs olive oil
1/8 tsp ground cumin (I eyeballed this because I don’t have a measuring spoon that tiny)
1 1/2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/4 cups bread flour
2 tsp yeast

This makes a 1lb loaf. I set my machine to the french bread setting and a medium crust color. The basic/white bread setting would probably work also.

It’s perfect to munch on by itself, it’s spicy and delicious, but even better dipped in chili. If you’re in the market to try a new chili recipe, mine is pretty fantastic! You can find that recipe here. It would actually probably be good served with gumbo too… Maybe I’ll put that on the list for next week!

I’ve been compiling my favorite bread recipes in one spot, if you want to check them out and maybe try one this weekend.

Happy Friday!

Blowing this joint!!!

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

Goodbye California! Well, we still have 7 days and a wake up! (As my brother would say…) We are getting Charlie out of the parking lot and heading for greener pastures!

The tentative plan a few days ago included leaving here, driving to South Dakota to change our domicile, get a new mailing address, register vehicles, etc. then head on to Dallas for the next job.

But, plans changed as they usually do and the next job is in North Dakota now! So our little stop in South Dakota isn’t really out of the way at all!

I’m excited, I’ve never been to the Dakotas and I’ve never been that far north period. I’m hoping for Allen’s sake if nothing else that we don’t get snow while we are there, but it’ll be an adventure nonetheless.

We have Texas and California now. Allen says we should have New Mexico and Arizona but I say we only count the states that all three of us (Allen, Charlie and I) stay in THIS camper.. And since what I say goes (most of the time-sshhh!) they are not on the map yet!

I love traveling and I get a little hard to deal with (I think) when we sit somewhere for longer than a month or two. I just get antsy and want to get on with it already. And I can’t wait to add to our map!

The tower they are going to be working on was the tallest structure in the world when it was built in 1963. It’s now the 4th tallest structure in the world (after some buildings in Tokyo), THE tallest in the Western Hemisphere and the tallest radio mast in the world. Pretty cool…

The KVLY-TV mast is in Blanchard, ND (almost exactly halfway between Fargo and Grand Forks). Blanchard has a population of 26. Yep. Small town. And I thought Convent, Louisiana was tiny! (Population 711, right on the Mississippi River)

The closest RV park is in Hillsboro and that’s a little bigger, population 1,603 in the 2010 census. It’s 1 square mile. There is a family restaurant, a Burger King, a Subway, gas station, grocery store, bakery, and a florist and I think there MAY be 1-3 bars but I can’t really decide if they are still open. From what I gather online, the RV park is also the town laundry mat and a fried chicken place. It should be interesting!

I’m pretty sure I can walk everywhere in less than 15 minutes (if I don’t let Charlie stop and smell ALL of the roses!)

I know this isnt Charlie and these aren’t roses but I couldn’t resist the adorableness!

I’m super excited to be getting out of the city and out into the country. I get to where I need open spaces after being in a city for too long. I’m excited Charlie will have some grass! And Allen will be glad to get back to real tower work (not just painting and piddling).

Today is full of typical San Francisco fogginess so I’m making my hillbilly chili for dinner and trying out this new recipe for Chili Bread that I found… I’ll let you know if it comes out delicious!

I also made these pillow covers for our friend Brandi back in Kentucky and mailed them to her this week… Her boyfriend went and installed a 50AMP outlet for us so we can stay in their yard during the holidays. Talk about some awesome friends!

And I made these for us… I’m loving the teal and brown combo…

If you would like to see one of many tutorials on the web, this one by me, you can check out this link or this one!

For now I will leave you with some cuteness… Charlie and her parking lot pals… Cheers!

Cisco the friendly husky pup.

Cisco gets bored and tears things up… For instance, his bed.

Duke and Daisy being lazy

A Few Random Friday Thoughts…

Posted on August 21, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

My neighbor Carmen recently got us (and by that I mean me, because really, Allen will never touch the thing…) a bread machine! I love it! I’ve been wanting to get one since we were in Florida this last time. Our neighbors Lyne and Terry had one and it smelled so good. They bring down their own flour every year from Canada because they don’t like the way American bread tastes. Anyway, I’ve been comparing models, and Carmen said she really wanted to get us something for sort of a housewarming gift, so, I’m the proud new owner of an Oster 2LB. Expressbake Breadmaker.

my very first loaf… i was excited and couldnt wait to try it.

I started with the traditional white bread in a 1.5LB loaf and it came out delicious. Then I moved on to the flavors… I’ve mostly used the recipes that came with the breadmaker but I’ve also ventured into Google territory for some yummy ideas.

I made a super scrumptious cheddar/garlic/herb type loaf that we ate one day then the next day sliced and drizzled with EVOO and stuck on the grill for a few minutes – SO good! We had the bread with a bacon-wrapped pork loin…yum!

Cheesy, garlicky, herby goodness… Please excuse the bites off the top, i couldnt help myself…

I tried Honey Wheat because that’s the kind of bread we like on a daily basis, but the recipe was a 2LB loaf, which is just too big for sandwiches. And I had not mastered the art of slicing by then. The next day we took off for Tahoe so it was moldy by the time we got back.

The latest was a 1LB Italian garlic and herb loaf which came out perfect! It’s the perfect size for sandwiches. (Allen’s taken two to work already.) And I let it cool longer this time before slicing. I also didn’t use my fancy bread knife and bamboo bread slicer that I bought.

I just used a non-serrated knife I got from the Dollar Tree a LONG time ago, and it worked great… Surprising, but true… So we have decided that the 1LB loaves are the way to go… My goal is to never buy grocery store bread again.

On another note, I felt my very first earthquake ever!!! I went to school (this super expensive one) out here in San Francisco for 4yrs and never felt one (I think I was on a barstool for most of them…) and then last year we were out here for about 5 months and I didn’t feel one then either. This one was crazy! I was laying in bed with Charlie, probably blogging or Pinteresting, and it felt like someone hit the camper. It actually felt like Allen backed up and hitched up to the camper, but I knew he was at work. So I thought A) someone was trying to steal our house with me and the dog inside! or B) one of these tourists driving a rental RV must’ve clipped our nose… Charlie and I both ran outside but nobody was out. All was quiet. I texted Allen and he then informed me it was an earthquake, that they felt it by the tower too. Yikes! But it was a smaller one, nobody was hurt, so that was good.

Begin Rant:

I’ve also been on the phone trying to order parts for the camper from Grand Design. We have a 2015 Grand Design Momentum 385TH. We just bought it at the end of March. It’s still brand new. You’d think it would be fairly easy to get simple parts for it. Almost two weeks after sending the first “inquiry form” to Grand Design, we finally have parts on the way! (I honestly thought they would have excellent customer service being that they are still a new and fairly small company…)

While I was back at my mom’s house for my brother’s funeral and Allen and Charlie drove from Texas to San Francisco alone, a yellow pole at a tiny gas station jumped up and grabbed onto the ladder on the side of the camper, yanked it a little and busted the red light that’s back there. So we need a light, and the bottom brackets that hold the ladder onto the camper.

We wound up having to get the part numbers from Grand Design then call a dealer to order them because Grand Design is not set up to sell directly to actual people. I find this silly. Luckily, Shelly at Lazydays RV in Florida was super nice and helped us out. I probably should’ve called Palm Beach RV since that’s where we bought the camper, but oh well.

Anyway, while I was on the phone with Amanda at Grand Design I had her switch me over to Jerry in warranty (yes, I’m on a first name basis with these people). I spoke with Jerry multiple times when we were in Louisiana trying to take care of the radio/tv situation. Grand Design had the bright idea to put some Furrion products, and some Haier products in here. (To save money I presume..) But they don’t communicate well with one another. The radio in the living room is also a DVD player and that wasn’t working so Jerry sent us a new HDMI cord. It worked then, but in hindsight I don’t think the cord was the issue. We still have the same problem with having sound and no picture when we play a DVD but now we just unplug the TV then plug it back in. It’s the cheap Haier TV. In the garage (toy hauler) there is a car stereo that also plays DVDs. But it constantly sounds like it is skipping around a CD in there or trying to spit one out. Jerry also sent us a new radio that we swapped out. That worked for a while. I noticed Monday that it started making noise again. So he is supposedly sending us ANOTHER radio to swap out and says if we have more issues we will have to take it in to have it looked at. I’m trying to avoid that because we live in here full time and I’d rather not live at a dealership for days. Also, the closest Grand Design dealer is in Sacramento. And Allen will not be commuting to from Sacramento to San Francisco to work! Anyway, last time, Jerry took forever to send anything out, I mean he said he sent it then a week later I called to see where it was and he still hadn’t sent it. So fingers crossed he actually put it in the mail yesterday!

End Rant.

Before we left for Tahoe, Allen’s buddy was flying home for the weekend and gave us a 10LB bag of potatoes. (He lives alone. Why he would buy a 10LB bag of potatoes eludes me. I’ll have to talk to him about that.) Anyhow, I’ve been looking at this bag all week. Then I decided that instead of letting them go bad, maybe I could freeze them. So I Googled… Then I made some frozen hashbrowns (you just dice them, drop them in boiling water for about 2min, drain and cool them, bag them and freeze them) and some frozen fries (same as above but you also fry them in oil for about 3min after blanching and drying, then cool, bag and freeze). Easy peasy. I still have over 5LBs of potatoes left but at least I got rid of some of them!

skinny fries

potato wedges (I sprinkled them with season salt when I took them out of the oil.

Last night I made 3-ways for dinner. Technically, 4-ways. If you don’t know what that is, it’s because it’s a Cincinnati thing… We are weird like that. It doesn’t matter where we move to, where our domicile is, Allen will always love 3-ways and goetta. (I on the other hand despise goetta… The taste, texture, cooking it, yuck!)

Every time we go back to Cincy we have to pick up a couple packs of chili mix…

I like 5-ways. Allen likes 4-ways. Everyone likes a good 3-way. 😉

The night before last, I came up with a new concoction that was pretty tasty… Rum and Kool-Aid! My brother loved Kool-Aid so I named this “Ode to Adam”…

I promise, Charlie didn’t drink with us!

Oh! And I almost forgot, I started growing my own green onions a couple weeks back. It is super easy. You just stick them in a glass of water after you use most of the green parts, change the water every couple days, and they grow on their own. Love it. This is my second round. After a while they get weaker and can’t stand up on their own, so you do have to start fresh after a couple of uses.

Thursday

Monday

They grow fast!
And just for fun, here are a couple shots of Charlie hanging out with her buddy Samantha in the old parking lot that is our “yard” here at Candlestick RV Park…

Oh Charlie…

Posted on July 13, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

I think my puppy is depressed. Allen says she is just used to being by herself all day since I’ve been gone and it’ll probably take her a couple of days to get back to normal. But she doesn’t really pay attention to me. She will go on walks, but then when we come back home, she just sleeps in bed. Lazy little thing.

Yesterday we spread my brothers ashes in San Francisco Bay. Charlie came with us. I read online that it helps to let flowers go too so that you can kind of follow them out. So we did that. Allen suggested next time that we spread them in water (is it called spreading? Scattering?) maybe we should put a little inside the rose, in between the petals and float it out. I think that’s a good idea.

After that we went to the grocery store and even though we left here less than a year ago, I forgot just how much more expensive everything is! Goodness… So I need to rethink how I’m going to cook dinner to try and make it cheaper while still being healthy and delicious. That’s going to take some brainstorming, and googling….

At least we have a lime tree, lemon tree, and a loquat tree here in the campground, not even 50ft from our front door! I’m making chili today, so those won’t come in handy. Unless we have some rum and cokes, then the lines would be perfect!

Here are some pictures I snapped this morning to show more of just how tight everything is in the campground… You can see some more here.