New Toy

I got a new toy the other day. A Drone! I got the DJI Mavic Pro. It's a flying camera.

This is my first flight. It took about 8 hours of study to get it to fly. After unpacking it and charging up all the batteries and controller; which took about 2 hours, and after reloading the software twice; I called tech support and that's when I found out it won't work with my Droid phone. So then I made a trip to one of my favorite stores, Best Buy, to buy an IPad Mini 4. After I got that mastered (I hate Apple stuff) and loaded with the DJI App, I was in hour number 5 and it was getting dark outside. The next day I powered up to find out it has to load new firmware. That took an hour to do. This thing is awesome, it's so smart.

 Peggy and I took it out into a nice open area in the park for our first flight. It was awesome! I had it in Beginner mode so you can only fly 98 feet away. It's a good start. My last drone experience of about 5 years ago, took 2 minutes to fly it into a tree and about an hour to get it out of the tree. So in comparison, this flight went good. We tested the "Fly To Home" button a couple of times and it worked great. It came right back and landed on the landing pad just inches away from where it took off. It has GPS to tell where it took off from and land right back on that same place.

The camera on it can record in 4K. I had to order a mount for the IPad. It will be here tomorrow. Until then, Peggy has to hold on to it when I'm flying. We'll call her a flight attendant. 

It will fly 98 feet away and stop and ask you if you want to take it out of beginner mode. But I think I'll fly in Beginner mode for a little while. They say it can fly up to 4 miles away and still come back on one charge. I'm not ready to try that yet either. You have to register with the FAA to get a permit to fly this drone. I did that for $5.  The drone has software in it and it knows when it's in a "No Fly Zone." Now that's smart. Those Chinese think of everything. This thing is a quality machine. I tried to load a video on the blog, but it took too long. So no videos on the blog.

But I had to add a Drone Picture. This is from 98 feet in the air.

A Drone shot from down low. A Drone selfie.

Oh and Peggy got some good shots of some birds.

Live Happy and Always Go Big.

New Gadgets

We have moved to Jim's Camping in Milton, WV. It's a small campground with no frills but we have a river lot. The Mud river is right behind us. But it's more like a ditch then a river. However, we are on the water. We did get to install our new Snap Pads on our landing gear.

These are rubber pads that snap right on. So when we move we don't have to pick them up.  I also installed some new door handles.

They have a key pad and a remote fob to unlock the doors. I put them on both doors. The fob can work from 75 feet away. The best thing I got in the mail this month was an infrared remote repeater for our radio.

 I installed this receiver in our outside compartment and the sender in the garage pointed at the radio. So now we can control our radio from anywhere outside! I love Gadgets.

And some more fun stuff came in the mail!

We had lunch at the Backyard Pizza in Huntington. This is their wood fired oven. The pizza was great!

Did you watch the eclipse?

We had 90 percent blockage here. 

This helicopter is trimming the trees.

They dangle a cable with big saw blades on it to cut the trees. It was pretty scary and impressive to watch. The workers lived across from us in the park. Go to their web site to watch the video. Here is the link: http://www.rotor-blade.com/videos

We could see Ohio from our camp site. This is looking over the Ohio river.

I have started to work on our 2018 trip. We have made some reservations already at some parks that are hard to get into. You can see our trip plan picture on the side bar.

Live Happy and Always Go Big.

New Places

We have moved a couple of times since last Blog. First, we went to The Falls Campground in Fallsburg, KY. The campground was a little small and didn't have full hook-up. So we didn't stay long. It was a very interesting drive getting there. The Garmin took us down state road 707! It was like going down a driveway. No lines down the middle of a very narrow road with no shoulders and it was 11 miles long. My driveway at home was wider. We almost got hit head on by a car on one of the curves.

The water falls were right in the park. It was an OK park but we won't be back. You could see the foundation of an old mill that was built in 1812.  

So now for our second move. We are at Robert Newlon Airport RV Park in Huntington, WV. This is a real cool park. Our site isn't that good but they have a great restaurant in the park, Fly In Cafe. They had live music Saturday night on the patio.

 

We've eaten there twice already and will again before we leave. They have a Seafood menu. They fly the seafood in. Peggy had the Crab and Lobster Lasagne, she said it was great.

 This is the home for West Virginia Sky Divers. So all weekend we've been watching them come down.

Looks like fun but NO way am I going to try it.

You can see two people on this one.

 This guy landed right in the RV park, right behind our rig.

It rained 1 inch and our site is like a swamp. That's the bad part of this park and the road in the park has huge pot holes.

We met Jack one night parked next to us. This is the very first RV he's ever owned. This is week 3 for him. We moved the truck for him so he could get out a little easier. He's driven all the way to Montana and back already. You're doing great Jack!

 We had to get our mat out to cover the swamp. No pictures of Peggy for a while. She got a bad hair cut! But look at the great hair cut I got. Thank you Peggy.

Funny things you see in RV Parks.

This guy's awning was coming apart. He didn't seem to care. I think awnings are the funniest things. In one park in Jackson, MS a guy was beating his awning with a hammer. We watched as his neighbor offered to help but was turned away. When a hammer is involved, frustration levels are already high.

Live Happy and Always Go Big.

Horsing around in Kentucky

We are in Georgetown, KY at a nice park.Whispering Hills RV Park. We have a nice, long, pull-thru site. The park has lots of amenities and a big pool.

 No grass on our site but some sites have grass.

Nice pond in the park.

We did some BGE maintenance by replacing the gasket on the top and bottom. The closest dealer was right down the street from the park; less then a mile away. They had the gasket and lots of Eggs and accessories. We added BGE towels and a beer can chicken rack to our purchases.

 Under construction. It only took about an hour to do the job.  

Looks like new. The food should be much better.

We got our EGGtoberfest tickets for Stone Mountain.

The big event is SOLD OUT already! It sold out in two days.

We made a trip to downtown Lexington to the Tin Roof, a place we've been to before to get "Cheesy Bacon Fries" and they were as good as we remember.

We stopped at Two Keys Tavern and played some Keno and we hit on our second draw. Got 4 out of 4 for $72 big ones! After we bought the bar a round we put $50 in the gas fund.

Funny thing; a guy I worked with (Who can not be named, because he found this during working hours) sent this post to me from the Forest River Camping Forum. The category was "funny things you see in camp grounds." I'm not sure why we made that category. The photo above ours was of Bill and Diane from Wisconsin who were traveling with their two grandchildren. We met those fine folks again at Singing Hills Park in Cave City, KY.  

Live Happy and Always Go Big.