We are now in the beautiful Napa Valley, home of most of America’s great wine. We’re here for two weeks, and, so far, the weather has been outstanding…80’ish in daytime, mid 50’s at night. No wonder those grapes like it here!
For a number of weeks, we have been bedeviled by our satellite TV reception. I’ve had to confer with the Dish TV tech folks a couple of dozen times about dropped signals, balky technology, etc. (It’s funny…last year, we didn’t even use the living room TV in the rig. Didn’t miss it a bit. Now, once we’ve gotten used to lounging around, watching the big screen, we can’t live without it!) Anyway, yesterday, my bitching and complaining to Dish TV reps finally hit pay dirt when they connected me with a real tech expert at Winegard, the folks who actually make the portable satellite dish receiver product. The guy told me to shorten my coax cable a bit, and, magically, everything got a whole lot better. He also turned me on to a cool app for my I-phone called “SatFinder Lite”, which shows you where in the sky the Dish TV satellites are hiding. Bottom line: we have stopped whining, and are enjoying our TV once again. And, just in time, because we are now able to tape a lot of programming on our DVR, which we will need when we get to our next stop, which is right in the middle of a redwood forest (i.e. no satellite TV reception possible).
Another “bitch and moan” during this trip has been our WiFi service from Verizon. Last year we had no problem with with our Verizon WiFi service. Some time this year, Verizon “upgraded” all of their wireless customers with so-called Unlimited Data. Yeah, sure, they’re going to give you more service for the same price…that only happens in dreams. What actually happens with Unlimited Data is that, after 10 Gigabytes, the speed slows down to a crawl. So, it’s like buying a 56 ounce Big Gulp soda at the 7-11, but you have to drink it through a cocktail straw. It might take 20 minutes to go online to Chase Bank and check you account. For Charlie’s business, that is useless.
Anyway, after struggling with our WiFi hotspot for a month now, we got into a lengthy debate with Verizon techs, and decided to get a second hotspot…one not included in the “unlimited data” scam. So, we did, at a significant cost, but it will be a tax deductible expense for Charlie’s business, and it will enable us to get her work done in a fraction of the time (that we were experiencing on this trip). So much for the NEW IMPROVED Verizon UNLIMITED DATA deal.
Speaking of deals, if you like wine, this is the place to come. There is a Wine Train (photo above) which takes well-healed winos directly to several big-name wineries in the Napa Valley at a minimum cost of $329 per person. It leaves from the station just down the street from the RV park. We’re going to pass because we don’t have anything nice to wear…and, we don’t like wine, either.
We had some great pizza last night. The delivery guy came over to the park from Papa Joe’s. It cost $26 for a large Pepperoni, Sausage and Mushroom, but it was a beauty, fully-loaded with goodies, and spicy (a bit too much for Charlie). I loved it; gonna have leftovers tonight!
I took Charlie shopping today to Home Goods and Michaels, then we went and had pedicures and manicures at NV Nails. The owner, and employees, were…surprise!…Vietnamese gals, and they were very good. We spent a bunch of dough there, but my feet feel GREAT.
By the way, I think I’ve mentioned that we are staying on a fairgrounds, the Napa Valley Expo. It is a large property, with all types of exhibition buildings, grassy areas, large paved areas, etc. There was a Mexican circus on a portion of the grounds when we got here, and it played for four or five days. Quite an operation, it was, and they must have made a ton of money. These entrepreneurs had spread “free” ticket come-ons all over town, and there are thousands of Mexican families in this Valley, which is labor-intensive agriculture focused; i.e. probably lots of illegal workers, Spanish only families, etc. Mucho cash to be had by the circus folks.
For those of you who don’t know me too well, I will tell you that I used to run a fairgrounds like this one…for six years, from 1988 to 1994. In fact, I used to know the lady who ran the Napa Valley Expo for many years. I just found out this week that she’s in prison…for embezzlement.
It’s not so funny, but a bunch of guys that I used to know in the fairgrounds business ended up in jail cells. Being a Fair Manager gives a person a lot of power to do good or…get greedy. There’s not a lot of close scrutiny by the local Fair Boards. So, lax oversight combined with lots of CASH equals sticky fingers…for those individuals who think that they can get away with it. At our fair, probably something around $1 million in folding money went through our hands in ten days, and that was only counting gate receipts. Maybe an equal amount came from food and product vendors and the Carnival. Anyway, I never succumbed to the temptation, but I was aware of a number of peers who did, and they are now paying the price. Bummer for them and their families.