Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Roadrunner Mug and a New Toy!

WELCOME to our new Follower, Carolyn!  Carolyn is a member of the Women Go Solo Yahoo Forum, as am I, and although I'm a lurker, Carolyn often comments, so I've been following her for a while, even before I started following her blog.  (How's that for a run-on sentence.)  She says "I am trying to figure out what to do with me in these final years of my life."  Jeez, Carolyn, you're in your 60's!  Hopefully these aren't  your final years - I'm in my late 60s too, and I plan on at least 30 more!  Carolyn's blog posts are very conversational and have lots of great photos. She has a rig named Homer and has visited 43 states so far.  Carolyn, thanks for following along with me and Katie!

My prize for First Place in the "Mello Mike's 1st Annual Roadrunner Photo Contest" arrived today!  It's bigger than I thought it would be - not only will it be great for drinks, but I can also use it for hot soups or stew; it's big enough around to use as an insulated food mug.  It's really pretty, and I can't wait to use it.



I sent Mike a thank you e-mail, and mentioned that after looking at these photos on the mug, I realized one of the things I like the  most about Roadrunners.  They always look so surprised, or maybe very interested in something.  They seem to have a real expression on their face.

I also got a new Kindle Fire yesterday!  Very exciting!  I've gone back and forth about getting a tablet, I really WANT one, but don't necessarily NEED one, so I just couldn't justify the cost. The one I want, with the keyboard attachment, would have been around $800 or more.  So I started looking at the Kindle Fire.  I have the first generation Kindle.  It's good for reading and I use it all the time, but I wanted something that would connect to the Internet without setting up my laptop.  I wanted it to get e-mail, access blogs, etc., and the Kindle Fire looked like a good deal at $199.

I had some points on my AMEX card to spend, and my daughter and her family gave me an Amazon gift card for Mother's Day (thanks Kristy and Matt!) and I used both toward the purchase price, so I got a very nice new electronic toy pretty inexpensively.

It came around 11 am yesterday, and I spent all day trying to figure it out, get all my books downloaded, get some documents into the "cloud" so I can download them to the Fire.  I want my maps and spreadsheets about parks available when I'm on the road, as well as other information.

I had to call Verizon to set up my phone as a Hot Spot so that I could wirelessly do what I need to do with the Fire.  I want to download as much as I can to the unit so I won't have to use the hotspot much. If I can download some movies and TV shows, etc., then I won't need to use the wireless feature when I watch them.  I'm hoping I can download movies from Netflix.

With the purchase of the Kindle, I got a free month to use Amazon Prime to watch movies and TV shows, but I need the Internet for that, so I'll use my laptop for that feature.  (Of course, anyone can get a free month - they give you 30 days free hoping you'll continue.)

I have a lot to learn about what it will do, and how things work.  I was ready for a new toy that I can have some fun with, and enjoy figuring out.

I also got myself a couple of battery operated fans today when we were shopping.  They'll be nice to have, for sure. I've been wishing I had some that didn't need to be plugged in. Sometimes it's not hot enough for the A/C with the generator running, but a nice little fan would be just right.  

Here are my three new toys - gotta love new toys!

 Roadrunner Mug, Kindle Fire, and Fan


Did I show you our new (3rd) campsite?  It's a good one.

 There's lots of shade by the table in the morning, 
but no shade on The Palms' solar panels.

Between working with the new Kindle all day yesterday, and going to Walmart today, putting away almost $300 worth of food and supplies, gassing up The Palms, then dumping tanks and filling up the water tank, I was really tired when we got back to the campsite around 3:00.  I don't plan to do anything much for the rest of the day, or tomorrow either.

Now we're good to go with everything we need, and more, until we leave here next week to travel to another New Mexico State Park.

Here are a couple of pretty sunsets from Monday evening. They were taken from our campsite; the first is a long shot and the second one is a close-up of the same place where the sun went down.



That's it for today. From Katie and me, have a  great Wednesday, everyone!  :)

14 comments:

  1. Nice mug ..and new toys too! Russ loves his Fire and I love Amazon Prime. There service is SO fast with Prime plus you can stream free movies and such. Love your campsite and sunset photos. New Mexico sure seems to agree with you.

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  2. How fun. A beautiful mug and a new fan topped off with a Kindle Fire. Now that is what I call a great bunch of presents.

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  3. Nice sunset photos as usual! I follow Carolyn's blog too. She is living proof that it's not about the rig.

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  4. I will be interested in how you like your Fire.... I have been contemplating whether to go to an I Pad or Kindle Fire. I will be interested to know how it affects your Verizon usage.... I understand that Verizon is working on losing their unlimited plans..... Everyone wants more bucks....Me too!!

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  5. It looks like Christmas arrive early at your place. I am one of those that continued after the free trail with Prime. I find it very helpful to be able to get two day shipping on prime items while full timing.

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  6. A very nice mug indeed! I have no experience with the Kindle Fire though my son has contemplated getting one off and on. The price is certainly right for all it can do. I wish you lots of fun perusing all of the newest media while chilling out with the fan, sounds perfect to me. Cheers to you and Katie. (())

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  7. Sounds like you had a fun day with your Fire. I started with an iPad, but felt it was too big to use as an e-reader so I got the Fire to use mainly for that and as my Amazon Prime device. I've got the Amazon Prime app on my Vizio TV and now use it instead of Netflix as the offerings were about the same (FYI--Netflix only works via streaming as well, so unfortunately, no way to download w/either of them. The only option I know of for downloading rentals is via iTunes, which actually is a pretty nice service too). Enjoy your new Fire!

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  8. oooo love the sunset pictures! and thanks for the welcome! I don't do that on my blog... don't know why. I surely appreciate the people who follow... always amazes me.

    Since I've been traveling and use my iPhone most of the time... I don't even get to see the followers ... I get the mobile version on my phone... ha?

    Had a great day ... with a fellow blog pal... you all know Gypsy...

    and you're right, Kim! it ain't about the rig... ol Homer ... hahaaa

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  9. Nice mug indeed. Kindle
    fire I couldn't figure out all that stuff for nothing. Now the fans I have a few of those. They run great on batteries but be careful when you plug them in. If they start to run funny unplug them fast. Those adapters get over heated.I threw them away.

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  10. I love my Kindle Fire. Use it at night to check e-mail, blogs, etc when I don't want to take my laptop out. Of course reading on it is good too!

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  11. Don't know anything about that kind of fire. Glad you're happy though. :)

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  12. I love my Kindle Fire and use it a lot while traveling. Just be sure if you are going to be in a situation without WiFi make sure the books you want to read are actually downloaded onto the Kindle itself and not just showing up on the book shelf. You have to open the book to actually download it onto your Fire.

    I found this out the hard way when traveling when I went to read a book that I thought was downloaded but it was still in the cloud and not on the Fire and I didn't have WiFi. :)

    You can also download yours books, etc. when you have free Wifi and then you don't need to use your Verizon.

    Enjoy
    Stephany Smith

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