I was in Scotts Bluff Nebraska for most of the weekend. My sister, her husband and I drove up Saturday day morning in order to be there for my grand niece's dance recital that evening. We spent the afternoon with my nephew, his wife and two kids, watching the kids play and  trying not too become to worn out by simply watching them.
   I have a grand nephew there, Rykin, who is two right now, and he seems to be running on either full bore or asleep. There doesn't seem to be any in between settings on that kid. He is so fun to watch however, as he is pretty sweet, and most of the time, he is very well behaved. But he is now walking, or should I say running, and if you blink, he in to everything. But in a very good way most of the time.
   My grand niece, Aubree, is now 8 and has turned into an even smarter, better behaved and beautiful young girl. She danced in three different dances during the recital and she was, of course, the best dancer in her group. The best part though is she seems to like it, and enjoys the whole dance thing.
   My nephew and his wife, Luke and Kirsten, were perfect hosts for the weekend, feeding us all and finding places for all of us to sleep. They have become quite the adults in the past couple of years.
   We left Scott's Bluff yesterday afternoon for the drive back to Imperial, stopping only once in Sidney Nebraska to go to Cabela's Sporting Goods store, and to eat some dinner at one of the local restaurants.
   I needed to pick up a Nebraska Parks Pass and fishing license so I can maybe do a little fishing over the next couple of weeks. I also found a new GPS unit for my truck. Poor Emma, my current GPS unit has done a pretty good job these last few years, but she is now seriously out of date on roads and there are no ways to really update it. I also wanted something with a little larger screen and a few more features. So the new one has lifetime updates on roads, as well as traffic updates, which will come in handy  when I travel through large cities. It also shows every lane of the road you are on and will tell you which lane you need to be in if you need to turn off onto another highway. I am looking forward to putting it in place and seeing how it works.
   Mark and Kathy made do with a couple new fishing poles and a new reel for Kathy. What is really nice is that all of us had enough, or in my case, nearly enough Cabela points to pay for the whole thing. I think I ended up having to shell out about $30 for everything I got, so not to bad of a deal really.
    The three of us just relaxed last night and watched the movie 'Rock of Ages' on their big screen TV. I've seen the movie several times but it is still fun to see once in a while. The plan today is to try and get some of my laundry done. There isn't a whole lot of personnel clothing to do yet as I haven't been on the road that long. But there is a need to wash all of my bedding and towels before going on the road again. So I will be staying here for at least one more evening before taking off again.
    Mark has volunteered to take a look at my trailer bearings this evening if there is time for it. He is a real genius when it comes to building or fixing nearly anything. On Thursday night last week we went over to one of the shop buildings where he works in order to put the truck and trailer inside in case there was a bunch of hail or even a tornado that evening. While there though, I finally got my right rear window regulator, the thing that makes the window go up and down, replaced so that it now, after nearly a year of being broke, works.
   But while I did that I had asked him if he could suggest a fix for my hitch as I kept having one of my tension bars fall out and then drag along the ground. I thought maybe it would mean cutting off a piece of a bolt and using it as a pin to keep the end in, but when Mark took a look at it he found that there was a big crack in the actual casing the round end of the tension bar fits in. So he took the whole hitch out and beat on it, ground parts of it, beat some more on it and then welded up whole sections of it so that when it went back on, the tension bars fit perfectly. One other thing he did which is really cool is that he welded a couple of metal beads on top of the piece that fits into the truck receiver and then ground it down so that it is still able to slide in and out as needed, but the up and down play in it is now nearly gone. That is going to make a big difference in how the trailer tows behind the truck and feels while going down the highway.
   For now though it is time to get busy and get a few things done that I need to do. Will try to get a few photo's posted in the next day or two, but it is pretty busy around here right now.




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