Day 15, 16, 17 - Athens, TX

Monday (Day 15) - I was notified that I picked up another virtual award using the Apple Watch. I met my minimal daily move goal 1500 times. This means that I’ve had an Apple Watch for at least 1500 days. I hadn’t realized that I’ve worn them that long. You just need to set the bar low enough.

Garrett came by yesterday afternoon to recaulk the front running lights and they were so cracked that they practically fell apart. I picked up replacements at the local Tractor Supply which has become one of my favorite stores. The new ones were designed for mounting to a metal surface so I needed to add a ground wire to each as the front cap is fiberglass. Digging through my supplies, I also found enough LED bulbs for all of the new running lights. Hopefully this fixes another water leak. We’ll find out in a couple of days as the forecast for Wednesday is a lot of rain.

For dinner, I made homemade murg makhani, better known as butter chicken, in the Instant Pot. It came out so much better than the bottled sauce. I think it may be the heavy cream. After sorting out the spices yesterday, I found I only needed a couple more to make this. You need a lot of spices to make just about any Indian dish. Surprisingly, I was able to find both of them at the Brookshire’s grocery store here in Athens. I could not find either one of them at Walmart. BTW, there is no “butter” in the dish.

Tuesday (Day 16) - A slow day here in Athens. Some minor repairs taken care of. I had ordered replacement tow dolly straps that hold the front tires onto the tow dolly. After 15k miles, they were showing some wear. The company had a two for one sale so I ordered two and they shipped two pair. I guess I'm set for a few more years. The 25' water hose, which is also about 1½ years old, sprung a pinhole leak a couple of feet from one end. I just cut the hose and picked up a new end from the hardware store. This was one of the cheap white water hoses sold at just about every RV dealer and was included free with the purchase of the motorhome. I still had the much higher quality 50' hose that we were using with the 5th wheel. This repaired hose is now relegated to be the tank flush hose. 

Wednesday (Day 17) - Lots of rain in the forecast for the next 24 hours. It just started around noon while I was doing one of the ham tests. I ended up needing to switch to Verizon about half way through the session. Fortunately, it can be switched with barely a hiccup on Zoom, Discord, and the testing website. 

I did put things away yesterday afternoon knowing that rain was coming. The dehumidifier is running on high now and is doing a good job of keeping our front windshield fog-free. Even with the Instant Pot running in slow cooker mode adding humidity. I’m making a sweet potato salmon chowder. Today just feels like a “soup” day.  

Some visitors came by today… I think they are enjoying the weather.