Lake Ozark and a TV Converter Box

Greetings from warm and balmy Lake Ozark!  I wish!  Loyce had Doctors appointments this week and needed to stay back in KC so I am a bachelor for the duration of my stay here at the lake.

This morning, I looked outside, and it was gray and cloudy.  The temperature was about 26 F and the wind was clam.  Checking the computer maps showed no rain or snow between KC and the lake, so the trip was on!

Loyce had left for one of her appointments, so I packed up alone.  I took a few groceries, but decided to stop at a Wal Mart for the rest of what I needed, and left about 11 AM.

I drove the truck East, and the indicated temperature began to become warmer, but only ever so slightly.  There was no rain and no snow. At about the halfway point, the temperature was above freezing, I knew that I would make it without the freezing stuff on the road.  Relief.

As I approached the lake from the West, I stopped at the Wal Mart in Versaillles, Mo.  I loaded up on some groceries, but failed to get a digital to analog converter for the TV.  They didn't stock it!  What?

I arrived at the lake, and the temperature in the cabin was 45, just where the thermostat was set.  It was exactly 32 outside and a steamy fog was over the lake.  The heat was running, and all was well.

I don't like leaving the house for such long periods in the winter, but we have no reliable friends or neighbors that live here in the winter, so it is, as it is.

The water was turned off at the entrance to the house, so plumbing and leaks were not a problem.  When I turned it back on everything worked correctly.  So we have heat and we have water.  On to the Wal Mart in Osage Beach.  A much bigger one!

They too didn't have a TV converter, but the salesman explained that we are too far from the stations for them to work reliably, so they were all sent back.  People buy them and then return them when they can't get a signal.  They think the converter is bad!  Really, we are just too far away.  Then he told me under his breath that Target had them!

A quick trip to Target sourced one made by RCA, and I installed it here rapidly.  I have an outside TV antenna, on the top of a pole mounted on the back deck.  The short version is, that I only got one channel, and then I had to adjust the antenna for the best signal, which was only 10 percent.  It sort of works.  As long as you like CBS.  Normally I use the Direct TV satellite dish, but the receiver is in the motorhome back in Arizona.  We were too stuffed with craft items to bring it back with us.

With the new converter, I got to listen to the local Weather, and we are to get the South edge of the storm and 1 to 3 inches of snow.  That will come as the day progresses tomorrow.  We don't even have a snow shovel here, so wish me luck.  The back driveway is about a 45 degree incline!  That's why I drove the 4x4 pickup truck.

Retired Rod