Monthly Archives: January 2015

2015/01/27-31 (T-S) Q 2015 W5

2015/01/27 (T) Ahhh, Mexico

We packed quite a bit into today.  After having toast and coffee for breakfast we drove to Yuma through heavy cloud cover and fog.  It made for an interesting and beautiful drive, but we did not pull off the road to take pictures.  There is often a tension between the need to get somewhere and the desire to stop and take photographs.  Today the destination took precedence.

When we got to Yuma we drove around looking for the Main Street that led to the heart of downtown and Yuma Territorial Prison.  This was only the second time we had been in Yuma and the first time I had driven here and I did not quite remember how the streets ran, which is unusual for me.  Yuma is not that big of a town and I was able to get oriented fairly easily with the help of the GPS map.  I missed a turn, however, and we ended up driving over the single lane bridge on the Ocean to Ocean Highway.  We stopped at a Casino just short of the California border, turned around, and went back over the bridge.  Being single lane the traffic is controlled by stop lights on each end.

Main cell block, 1875 Yuma Territorial Prison.  Yuma, AZ.

Main cell block, 1875 Yuma Territorial Prison. Yuma, AZ.

I made the correct turns this time and got us to the parking lot for the 1875 Yuma Territorial Prison State Park.  Very little of the original prison remains, but there is enough of it to give a feeling for what it was like.  The small museum does a good job of telling the story, but a tour guide (from Canada) helped fill in details and answer questions.  Although part of the Arizona State Parks system, it is operated by a local organization staffed by volunteers.

The prison and the Quartermaster State Park are the two main tourist attractions in Yuma.  Beyond those two things it is the closest city to Quartzsite with a good selection of major retailers.  Yuma is also home to Marine Corps Air Station Yuma and the U. S. Army Yuma Proving Grounds are just 20 miles north of town.  But the thing that interested us is that Yuma is the wintertime lettuce bowl of North America.  The flat topography and rich soil, watered by an extensive irrigation system fed by the Colorado River and worked by Mexican laborers, spreads as far as the eye can see and supports a vast crop of a large variety of leafy green vegetables.

From the prison I drove west on I-8, almost immediately crossing the Colorado River into the extreme southeast corner of California.  Eight miles later we exited onto CA-186 and headed south through the Quechan Indian Reservation to the U.S./Mexican border crossing at Los Algodones.  We parked in the Indian owned/operated lot and walked across the border into Mexico; our first ever visit to our southern neighbor.  We found it interesting that no one checked us on entry.

Los Algodones is an interesting and unusual little town.  It exists because of tourists from north of the border and has been developed to serve some specific needs of those visitors.  It has the highest concentration (and number) of dentists and optical shops of any place on earth and quite a few pharmacies too.  Many American and Canadian RVers come to this area during the winter months not only for the warm, dry climate, but for annual dental work, eye exams, glasses, and both prescription and over-the-counter drugs.  The vast majority of them park on the U. S. side and walk across the border.

We walked the streets of Los Algodones for an hour or more and finally settled at the Pueblo Viejo restaurant for lunch.  Linda and Marilyn had bean burritos and bottled mineral water.  I made the riskier choice and had a green salad and deep fried peppers.  The peppers were thinly sliced jalapeños mixed with sliced onions.  Linda and Marilyn had some too, but between the three of us we did not finish them; too hot.  At least they were authentic!  Puerto Viejo was the #2 rated restaurant on Trip Advisor and everything we read said the town was safe, including the food.  (The #1 rated restaurant was a sushi bar.)

The restaurant was just across the street from the port of entry so we walked over there and got in line behind a couple of hundred other people.  It took 30 – 40 minutes to reach the customs agent, but the sidewalk was shaded by an overhanging sunscreen and lined with benches so it was comfortable enough.  When it was finally our turn we each cleared customs in less than a minute and were finally back the U.S.A.  We got to use our credit card size passport cards for the first time.

We drove back to Yuma and found the major outdoor shopping mall where I stopped at Best Buy to look for a lens hood and cap for my Sony alpha kit/zoom lens (DT 3.5-5.6/18-70mm) but they did not have any compatible products.

The drive home up US-95 was very different than the drive down.  The clouds and fog were gone and we had a clear view of the mountains to either side of the valley.  Once we were north of the U. S. Army Proving Grounds the land to the east of the highway was part of the KOFA a National Wildlife Refuge, one of the largest in the country at over 650,000 acres.  (KOFA stands for “King OF Arizona, a large mine that once operated in this area.)  Between the Proving Grounds and the BLM land south of Quartzsite there are four roads that lead east into the refuge.  Overnight camping is permitted within 100 feet of the roads unless otherwise posted, but we saw very little evidence of anyone out there.  It is, however, a large, remote, area without any services so it only appeals to a certain kind of boondocker, such as those seeking solitude and a semi-wilderness experience.  I say “semi-” because if you can drive there in a 40′ motor home, or a pickup truck pulling a 35′ 5th wheel trailer, it is not wilderness by definition.

About 20 miles south of Q we turned off onto the KOFA NWR road leading to the Palm Canyon trailhead.  The canyon is a huge crevice in the 5,000 foot tall mountain and is home to the only indigenous Palm trees in Arizona.  The trailhead was another seven (7) miles in from the highway and the trail into the canyon was a half mile hike from there, so we will come back another time earlier in the day and do that.  The sun was getting lower in the western sky and the top of the very large mountain to our east was obscured by clouds so the situation was setting up for the possibility of good photographs.  We drove in about 3 miles (at 10 – 15 MPH) and then pulled off the road at a good vantage point to take photos.  We were rewarded for our decision as the sun bathed the mountains in glorious, warm light.

Although the road was generally good gravel and clearly defined we wanted to leave the refuge and get back to the coach while it was still daylight.  As often happens the sunset lingered and the colors deepened as we drove.  One of the challenges with shooting sunsets is that if you hang in there until it is over, you have to pack up your gear and extract yourself from the location in the dark.  Unless, of course, you are backpacking and have already pitched your tent right there.  The same goes for sunrise photography, only in reverse.

Back at the coach we had various snacks for dinner.  Butch brought the mail over and we chatted for a few minutes.  I worked on several e-mails from Gary at BCM, and Bob from our FMCA Freethinkers chapter.  I transferred photos from my camera to my computer and backed them up to the NAS.  I then used MS-ICE to create a couple of panoramas from today’s trip and used FIV to post-process them along with a photo of the mountain at sunset.  By the time I was done it had been a very long, but interesting, productive, and satisfying day.

View looking north from the 1875 Yuma Terriorial Prison State Park, Yuma, AZ.

View looking north from the 1875 Yuma Terriorial Prison State Park, Yuma, AZ.

2014/01/28 (W) Boomerville

After a light breakfast Linda and Marilyn drove to the local Farmers Market and also spent a little time looking around Desert Gardens.  Linda bought some asparagus and a Romanesco brocciflower, which is a cross between broccoli and cauliflower.  It grows in a fractal manor based on a Fibonacci number sequence which makes it visually very interesting.

While they were gone I worked on survey items for the FMCA NEC member education survey and suggested a minor change to the seminar categorization spreadsheet that Jim A. had prepared.  I had planned to work on my blog posts for the third week of October (2014) but did not get to those before lunch.

After lunch Linda and I drove out to the BLM Scaddam 14-day area east of town and found the site where Boomerville was set up all last week.  Most of the rigs had pulled out.  Many of them were also geocachers and moved to the Roadrunner area south of town.  We were looking for Bill Stewart and Lynn Pearlmutter from our FMCA Freethinkers chapter and finally spotted their Tiffin Phaeton.  We sat and chatted for over an hour and then headed back to camp where Marilyn had been re-treating in our absence.  I think it has been a good visit for her.

I worked on consolidating seven blog posts from the third week of October while Linda started preparing dinner.  For Marilyn’s final dinner meal (dare I say ‘last supper’) Linda made her mock stroganoff.  No, she did make Marilyn mock her stroganoff, she made a vegan version of stroganoff and served it over white rice, the way I like it.   She also steamed the Romanesco brocciflower.  The taste and texture was mostly cauliflower-like so I seasoned my pieces with a little white vinegar, which is the way I like my cauliflower.

While the ladies played Scrabble online I worked on the blog post and got the pictures selected and edited.  I was up very late again but I got it posted before I went to bed.  I was also having trouble logging in to RVillage using the Google Chrome browser.  I tried Firefox and got in without difficulty and was able to navigate the site.  Remembering that Butch had a similar problem a couple of weeks ago with a different website, I cleared the browsing history (cache) for the last week and tried again.  That resolved the problem, at least for now.  RVillage support had indicated that they were having login issues with the site, so my browser may have cached a bad page.  I primarily use Chrome to browse, so the bad page had probably not been cached in Firefox.

I spent some time on e-mails dealing with an issue we have in our FMCA Freethinkers chapter.  I updated Piriform CCleaner on my computer and ran it.  I then opened Piriform Defraggler, checked for updates, and started it.  It said the remaining time was “> 1 day” so I let it run and went to bed.

Although it was late I worked on the draft of my blog post for yesterday as I had only had time to outline it on my iPad.  I then worked on this post.  Even though I am still way behind in uploading posts to our WordPress website I have to write them each day or I lose the details.  It also takes a fair amount of time, and if I get behind I risk not being able to catch up.  I don’t have to do this at all, of course, but it’s something I want to do and enjoy doing.  I just don’t like being so far behind.

One of the many covered sidewalk market areas in Los Algodones, Mexico.

One of the many covered sidewalk market areas in Los Algodones, Mexico.

2015/01/29 (R) The Flying Nun

We have had an excellent visit with Marilyn since she arrived on the 22nd with a nice mix of local activities, distant sight-seeing, and quiet time at home to visit and allow her to read, rest, and contemplate.  She flew back to St. Louis, Missouri this afternoon but before she left Linda made vegan blueberry pancakes for brunch.

Marilyn’s flight home was at 4 PM MST from the Phoenix airport, which is over 130 miles east of Quartzsite, so they left at noon to get her there in plenty of time.  I stayed home to work and decided to reconcile the financial statements for our FMCA Freethinkers chapter with the copies of the bank statements I received yesterday from the Treasurer, who lives in Chico, California.  While I was at it I updated my financial statements and dues analysis worksheets and the master roster.  Linda called at 2:30 PM to say she was starting back to Q but that traffic was very heavy and she might not be back until after 5 PM.  That proved to be a very accurate estimate.

We had an early dinner that that consisted of a large salad and an equally large glass of Sangria.  I continued to work after dinner dealing with e-mails and then editing together the blog posts for October 23 through 29 into a single post.  I got the post compiled but it was too late (I was too tired) to select and process photos, much less upload the whole thing to WordPress, so I went to bed.

2015/01/30 (F) Regen Aggravation

Rain was forecast for last night and into today and that forecast turned out to be accurate.  It started raining around 11 PM and rained through the night and into mid-late morning.  The precipitation rate was never very high but the rain was persistent.  Even after it quit raining heavy clouds filled the valley and obscured the mountain tops in all directions.  There was a lower chance of showers for this evening after which the system is then supposed to start clearing out.

Marilyn does care for breakfast cereals or things that look, taste, or feel like milk, so we tended to have toast for breakfast while she was here (except when we had vegan cinnamon rolls and vegan blueberry pancakes).  This morning we returned to our normal breakfast of granola, fruit juice, and coffee.  After breakfast we both had work to do and set both of our laptops up on the dinette table.

Linda got a package yesterday from the bakery via UPS with work papers related to the 12th accounting period of the 2014 fiscal year.  This was also the first accounting period in which the bakery was running only on the new software.  Linda did the software configuration and conversion in September, October, and November of 2014 and the 12th accounting period corresponds approximately to the month of November.

My “work” was completing my blog post for October 23 – 29, 2014.  I selected 10 photographs for the post that were representative of the work described in the narrative, visually interesting, and technically OK.  I uploaded the text to WordPress and then uploaded, captioned, and inserted each image.  I got finished about the same time Linda got tired of staring at numbers and made pocket pita sandwiches for lunch. She went for a long walk afterwards and I turned my attention to our fresh water system.

I knew we were below 1/3rd of a tank of fresh water based on the monitor in the house systems panel.  I checked after lunch and we were at ~1/6th of a tank (~20 gallons).  The last time I filled the tank I checked the hardness afterwards and it was higher (3.0 grains per gallon, or gpg) than it had been.  After the last regeneration (recharge) it measured 1.5 gpg and continued to give that reading after each of the next few fill ups.  (It should have measured 0 gpg but I was not able to get it recharged to that extent.)   We have been keeping a log of the dates, gallons, and hardness but I had not yet analyzed the data so I added 100 gallons to the tank.  Afterwards I checked the hardness of the water coming out of the softener and it measured 25 gpg, which is the low end of the very hard water range.  Oops.

Although Los Algodones, Mexico was crowded and bustling with tourists from north of the border there were many quiet places like this.

Although Los Algodones, Mexico was crowded and bustling with tourists from north of the border there were many quiet places like this.

I did not want to leave that water in the tank and run it through our plumbing and fixtures, but I had to regenerate the water softener before I could do anything else.  I removed the filter from the housing on the input of the water softener.  It was brown all the way through from the outer surface to the inside, so it needed to be replaced even though I had just installed it when I did the last regeneration.  Quartzsite city water is safe to drink but in addition to being very hard it has a lot of sediment in it.  Butch also thinks it is over-chlorinated and Jim L., who qualifies as a local, just doesn’t think it tastes good.  The water we drink and cook with in the coach goes through three filters and a softener before it reaches our lips so we do not have any issues with it.

I put the special recharge tube into the filter housing and filled the bottom half of the housing around the outside of the tube with solar salt.  I then poured half of a container of Morton table salt (non-iodized) on top of the solar salt.  I aligned the center tube with the center of the head and threaded the housing onto the head.  I ran water through the filter housing and then through the softener until I got a strong salty taste out of the softener.  The instructions that came with the unit say to run water through the filter housing and out the softener until the saltiness is gone, but it gives no indication of how strong or weak the flow should be or how long it should take.

[When salt (NaCl) dissolves in water (H2O) sodium ions become available.  The special media in a water softener has an affinity for dissolved ions.  Recharging the softener dislodges the calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg) ions from the media and replaces them with sodium (Na) ions as a result of the supersaturated saltwater brine.  During normal operation the sodium (Na) ions in the softener are exchanged for the calcium (Ca) and Magnesium (Mg) ions in the water.  “Soft” water is not demineralized water, but the sodium (Na) ions do not cause the scale and build up in plumbing systems that the harder calcium and magnesium ions do.]

This is where we ate lunch in Los Algodones, Mexico.

This is where we ate lunch in Los Algodones, Mexico.

When the water coming out of the softener was very salty I reduced the flow to a small amount and let run.  I lost track of exact time, but I eventually shut the flow off, shut off the incoming water, and unscrewed the housing.  It still had salt in it; not as much as when I started, but too much to be done.

[It takes a certain quantity of salt to produce enough sodium ions (Na) to completely recharge a softener of some given capacity.  Softeners do not treat a certain number of gallons of water before needing to be regenerated; they remove a certain number of grains of hardness based on the design.  The harder the water coming in the fewer gallons that can be processed.  Softer water in, more gallons processed.  When you understand the science involved, it is really quite simple.]

I stirred the salt in an attempt to dissolve it and put the housing and tube back on the head and ran more water through it.  One of the problems with this arrangement is that I am starting with very hard water while trying to regenerate a water softener, but there is no easy way around that.  The other problems is that I do not have a sediment filter ahead of the softener.  If particulates are allowed to enter the softener and accumulate they will reduce and eventually destroy the effectiveness of the ion exchange media.  This is a design flaw that is easily remedied by adding another filter housing between the sediment filter and the inlet of the softener.  I will probably rig up something like this when I redo the water bay and use a clear housing so I can see when the salt is gone.  Assuming, of course, that I do not replace the entire system with one like Butch’s.

After fooling around with this for a while I tested the water coming out of the softener and it was still up around 15 gpg.  It appeared that nothing I had done for the last two hours had made any difference.  I removed the housing yet again and added an entire 26 oz. container of Morton non-iodized table salt.  I ran the water until it came out of the softener very salty and then shut it off.

I set the timer on my phone for one hour and drove down to the Tyson Wells market area on Kuehn Street to buy a T40 GAC (granulated activated carbon) filter from the Water Filter guy.  While I was down there I stopped and bought a loaf of Barry’s Basic Bread.  When I got back to the coach I ran the water for 30 seconds, shut it off, and set my timer for 20 minutes. I repeated this cycle for another hour and then set an outlet valve on the softener to emit a slow stream and let it continue to run.  I periodically tasted the water coming out and eventually it did not have any saltiness.  I checked it with a test strip, my third of the day, and it finally tested at 1.5 gpg.  Evening was approaching and I once again found myself in the position of having to finish this process in the dark, so I abandoned any hope of getting it fully recharged to zero (0) gpg, if the unit is even capable of that.

I opened the drain valve on the fresh water tank part way and let the entire 120 gallons drain out.  I did not like wasting that water, but I did not want it in our system.  I also do not like the amount of time and water it seems to take to regenerate our softener, but it’s what we have for now.  At least we are parked on gravel so all of the salty water can just soak in without harming anything.  In an RV resort with landscaping we would have to be careful not to discharge the brine onto the grass or plants.  The salt water is also not great for septic systems, but in sticks-n-bricks homes it usually ends up in one of those two places.

I installed a new 5 micron melt-blown polypropylene sediment filter in the pre-softener housing and screwed it back on to the head.  I let filtered water run through the softener and onto the ground to flush any remaining brine out of the tank.  While that process was taking place I turned my attention to the post-softener filter.

We have a filter housing built into the water bay of the coach.  Water enters the coach through a garden hose connection then (presumably) passes through a check valve before going through the filter.  From there it runs throughout the coach to all of the fixtures and the Aqua-Hot.  One of the fixtures is the fill valve for the fresh water tank.  When the onboard 12VDC water pump is used it simply takes water out of the fresh water tank and pressurizes the entire system the same way the shore line does.  The pump has a check valve to prevent the pressure from an external connection from forcing water backwards through the pump.

The filter housing is hidden behind a beauty panel that makes it awkward to access and service but I managed to get the housing loose and to remove it without spilling too much water.  The installed filter was just a pleated sediment cartridge but it was basically clean so either sediment was not getting this far or was small enough to pass through.  I installed the T40 GAC cartridge and put the housing back on the head.  I then turned off the water coming into the softener and connected the output to the hose from the fresh water inlet on the coach.  The directions said to flush out the T40 with at least five gallons of tap water before using the water so I filled the kitchen sink half full while running off of the shore line.

I started this process at 1 PM.  It was now 6PM and I was finally ready to fill the fresh water tank.  The T40 filter cartridge does not have a micron rating but it was a rather snug fit in the housing and the design looks like it could constrain flow rates.  I opened the fill valve for the fresh water tank and set my phone timer to 40 minutes.

While the tank was filling I started putting the dump and fill data we have been logging into a spreadsheet.  Our softener tank is the same size as Butch and Fonda’s, which is labeled as having a 10,000 grain capacity.  Our data indicated that the last 100 gallons we added took our total from 515 to 615 gallons.  We knew we had obviously run too much water through the softener based on the first hardness test today, but this data was confirming that we had, at most, a 10,000 grain capacity tank.  Given the 25 gpg city water coming out of the tap we will need to regenerate the softener somewhere between 400 and 500 gallons.  Given the aggravation involved in trying to recharge our unit I doubt that it will be a long-term solution for us.  It simply should not take that much time to do something so simple, especially when it has to be done so often.

At the end of 40 minutes the fresh water tank was 3/4s full so I set the timer for another 10 minutes.  With the current filter setup the flow rate into the tank appears to be about 2.5 gallons per minute.  The Shur-Flo 4048 pump has a 4 GPM maximum flow rate, so that is another reason we run off the tank rather than the shore line.

By the time the tank was full it was too late to actually cook dinner so Linda heated up an Amy’s Barley Vegetable soup and put out some crackers and peanut butter; easy but delicious.

I worked on this blog post after dinner, spent a little more time with my water usage spreadsheet, dealt with some critical e-mail, and went to bed way too late.  But then, I did not have to be up by any certain time and I can take a nap tomorrow if needed.

Palm Canyon at sunset.  KOFA National Wildlife Refuge about 20 miles south of Quartzsite, AZ.

Palm Canyon at sunset. KOFA National Wildlife Refuge about 20 miles south of Quartzsite, AZ.

2015/01/31 (S) January LTT

The last day of January dawned under cloudy skies.  We are well past the midpoint of our first winter in Quartzsite and continuing to enjoy our time here.  The “Big Tent” RV Show has been over for a week and the BLM STVAs (free, 14-day limit) have thinned out as the visitors who were here for two weeks surrounding the ‘show’ have moved on.  There are still lots of RVs in the BLM LTVAs (fee-based, up to 180 days) but those are longer-term visitors who, like us, are here for ‘the season.’  The commercial RV Parks in town still have healthy occupancy, but the ‘vacancy’ signs are out once again.  There are still plenty of vendors set up in the various markets along Kuehn Street and the flea markets along west Main Street are still operating.  There is still traffic but not the parade of RVs and gridlock of the previous couple of weeks.  There is still lots of activity but the frenzy appears to be over.  Experienced visitors have told us that we will notice a gradual slow down as we move through February into March.  We will also notice a general warming of temperatures.

A small bird of prey has been active around our campsite for the last few weeks, probably longer, and was finally successful in catching something to eat this morning; at least this was the first time that were aware of it.  It took a small bird down by the seed block that attracts various birds and rabbits to our ‘front yard’ and sat where we could see it while it ate.  WE identified it as an American Kestrel (Sparrow Hawk) and the small bird it caught was indeed a sparrow.  The American Kestrel ranges from 4 to 10 ounces in weight and has a wingspan up to 24 inches with the larger birds being the mature females.  It is the only Kestrel native to North America and is the first one we have had a good look at in the wild.  It normally eats large insects, small mammals, and lizards, but will take smaller birds if it can, thus the name.  They also have the unusual ability to hover given a very slight amount of wind.

We planned to stick around camp this weekend and work on various tasks so after breakfast Linda started a load of laundry.  I like laundry day because I get to stay in my sweat clothes while my regular ones get laundered.  Between loads Linda continued working on accounting for Butch and Fonda and for the bakery.  I prepared a 4-day and a 7-day consolidated blog post and then worked on reformatting and expanding some more survey items for the FMCA national education committee.  I received a draft report/recommendation from Jim A. for the seminar classification work we have been doing so I went through it, made minor corrections, and added several comments for his consideration.

Linda can only sit for so long so around 2 PM she made mock deli meat sandwiches for lunch with vegan cheese slices, lettuce, vegan mayo, and honey mustard on Barry’s Basic Bread.  She then went for a long walk while I continued to work at computer-based tasks.  She made it to the market area at Kuehn Street and Central Avenue and bought another loaf of Barry’s Basic Bread as we worked our way through the one we bought yesterday fairly quickly.

Butch installed his new TireTraker TPMS sensors yesterday.  (I still need to install ours.)  In the process he discovered that his Chevy Suburban spare tire only had 14 PSI of air pressure in it.  Worse yet the valve stem on his bus spare was too damaged to get the sensor on.  But the real problem was that one of the two attachments for the front bus bumper broke off.  Four bolts had rusted through and snapped.  This morning he looked at what would be involved it drilling out the pieces that were stuck in the threaded holes and decided that was not a job he could do on the road.  He bought some metal strap and fashioned two loops around the front of the bumper and behind the mounting plate and bolted the ends of each to draw them in tight.  When he was done the bumper closed and opened just fine and aligned well with the body when closed.  I joked that this might be another “Long-Term Temporary” repair, or “LTT” for short, and suggested that we should coin the phrase.

Linda made a new dish for dinner, Savory Orange Roasted Tofu and Asparagus.  As the name indicates, it consisted of tofu cubes roasted in a mixture of miso, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil to which asparagus was added while roasting continued.  A sauce is made from miso, balsamic vinegar, orange juice, and orange zest and mixed in to the roasted ingredients just before serving.  She also made Farro with a little oil, salt, and pepper and served it as a side.  It may be the first time we have had Farro all by itself rather than as an ingredient in a dish.  It really is a wonderful grain.  Clementine orange sections and Franzia Fruity Red Sangria completed the meal.

A Romanesco Boccliflower.

A Romanesco Boccliflower.

Towards the end of dinner I had a call from Neal Sunderland wanting to know if we knew of anyplace in Q where he and Nora could get prime rib (of beef) for dinner.  An odd request to make of a vegan, perhaps, but we only just met during the Eagles International bus rally and he did not remember how we eat.  Linda got on an iPad and did her best to find out what was in town.  The problem with Q is that a lot of the restaurants close at 8 PM, or sooner if they run out of food.  They were already driving when Neal called and he spotted a sign at the Stagecoach Restaurant on Main Street (B-10) for a prime rib special so they pulled in to the parking lot.  I heard the hostess in the background tell Neal that they were out of the special.  They had 37 of them available for dinner and they were all sold.  Yeah, Q is like that.

I have been reading up on the WordPress.com Jetpack: Site Administration feature.  It sounds very cool as it would allow me to manage multiple WordPress websites via my WordPress.com account.  This includes self-hosted sites, which all four of mine are, plus WordPress.com hosted sites.  I have the Jetpack installed on all four Websites but I have never activated the Site Management feature, which must be done from within the admin panel.  I decided to activate it tonight on the FMCA Freethinkers website, hosted by iPower.com.  The activation failed and took down the /WP-admin/control panel.  The site is still there (structure/functionality/content) but I cannot get to the dashboard to do anything.  I sent a support request to iPower and cc:d Bob Pelc, the President of the FMCA Freethinkers, who is the owner of the clubs iPower account.  I also sent a support request to Jetpack and an e-mail to Larry (K8UT) seeking his thoughts on the situation.  This was not how I wanted to end my day but there was little more I could do late on a Saturday evening, so I went to bed.

 

2015/01/22-26 (R-M) Q 2015 W4

2015/01/22 (R) Sister Marilyn

Marilyn & Linda in front of Beer Belly's "adult day care" outdoor bar.

Marilyn & Linda in front of Beer Belly’s “adult day care” outdoor bar.

The temperature dropped into the low 40’s last night in the wake of the cold front that brought strong winds to Quartzsite yesterday.  We were up at 6:30 AM to give us time to eat breakfast and enjoy our coffee before Linda left at 8 AM for the Phoenix airport to pick up her sister.  Marilyn was scheduled to arrive at 11 AM MST and the airport is a 2 to 2-1/2 hour drive from Quartzsite but Linda wanted to take her time getting there and be in the cell phone lot before the flight got in.  The plan was to go to lunch and then drive back to Q so she was going to be gone most of the day.

I had turned off the diesel burner on the Aqua-Hot last night so this morning I turned on the three electric toe-kick heaters and the Broan cube heater to take the chill off of the interior.  With the coffee pot also turned on we were drawing 26 A at 115 VAC on leg 1 and 15 A at 118 VAC on leg 2.  That was more current than we were able to draw before Jim L. changed the shorepower connection from 30 A (120VAC) to 50 A (240VAC) and the first time we have had reasonable voltage levels since we arrived here.

I rode over to the RV show with Butch at 9 AM to look at tire pressure monitoring systems and we both ended up buying TireTraker TPM Systems from Darryl Lawrence.  We have both done business with Darryl in the past and trust him as a vendor.  I also bought three products from the Carnu-B booth.

Back at the coach I checked the coolant level in the Aqua-Hot expansion reservoir.  It was right at the maximum cold level so there was nothing else to do for the moment.  I needed to redo the overflow hose, but not today.  I then used two of the Carnu-B products on the driver-side side window and surrounding painted body surfaces.  It removed the hard water stains and polished everything up very nicely.  I then did a test patch on the front of Butch and Fonda’s bus and it appeared to clean the stainless steel nicely.  They later cleaned an adjacent patch with straight food-grade vinegar and it seemed to work just as well although it did not provide a wax finish.

While I was fiddling with the Aqua-Hot and the cleaning/waxing process Butch started reading the manual for the TT-TPMS and found information that indicated the system did not work the way we thought it did and needed it to.  The manual more than implied that the sensors were activated by motion and stated that readings would appear “… within 20 minutes of starting to drive.”  Say what?!  We both want to use the system to check our tire pressures BEFORE we start to drive, as would most RVers.

Although there are things we do not like about our current Pressure Pro TPM systems they certainly give us the current pressure in the tires without having to drive the vehicle.  They also allow us to monitor just the bus, just the car, or both.  Most systems do this, including the TireTraker, but the Truck Systems Technology (TST) does not.  That was Butch’s first choice system until he found that out.

At 12:45 PM I rode over to the Quartzsite Senior Center with Butch and Fonda for a 1 PM meet and greet with Chuck Woodbury of RV Travel and the Geeks On Tour.  It ran until 4 PM but we were anxious to get back to the RV Show tent and talk to Darryl.  We took our TT-TPMS units with us with the intent of returning them but Darryl assured us that they do work the way we need them to so we decided to keep them for another day or so to test them.

Fonda had not been to the RV Show yet so we walked the entire tent.  I spent a little time talking to the guy at John Carrillo Hydronic Heating.  He had a brand new, never been fired, Webasto DBW2010 burner (with the controller) for $1,800 (cash).  I have seen them online for $3,300, so I knew that was a good price.  I wish I needed one, but we already have a spare.  He also had a new combustion chamber for $200 and I may go back and get one of those.  They wanted $450 for an ignition coil, which I also need, but I can get one from Sure Marine Service for $303.  We spent a long time looking at flag poles at the Flag Pole Buddy booth and Butch bought a 22′ model with an extra set of mounts.

Linda was texting me her status on a regular basis and by the time we got back to camp she and Marilyn were already there and relaxing on the porch of Joe and Connie’s park model trailer.  We sat outside until the sun kissed the tops of the southwestern mountains and then moved inside to escape the chill.  While we were sitting in the coach visiting and cooking Butch installed one of the TT-TPMS sensors on the driver-side front tire of their Suburban, programmed it into the monitor, noted the readings, and went for a test drive.  He noted the readings when they got back and plans to check it again in the morning before moving the car.  That will be the real test.

For dinner Linda made a nice green salad and a lovely mushroom kale risotto with Arborio rice.  We then went to the apartment so I could light the pilot flame on the wall-mounted propane heater.  I visited for a bit and then went back to the coach and Linda followed a bit later.  We were both tired and turned in early.

240 degree panorama from atop 'Q' Mountain, Quartzsite, AZ.

200 degree panorama from atop ‘Q’ Mountain, Quartzsite, AZ. Left edge is N, right edge is SSW.

2015/01/23 (F) Q Mountain

We were up by 7:30 AM and Marilyn eventually arose and joined us for coffee and toast.  The only bread we had was a package of whole wheat pitas, but they toasted just fine and were very good with orange marmalade.  I am not, however, thrilled with the Soy Delicious Almond milk coffee creamer.  It is not as ‘creamy’ as Silk soy creamer and it tends to separate into tiny bubbles in the coffee.  I do, however, like the Almond milk that we sometimes buy, especially on granola type cereals.

Butch called just after breakfast to let me know that the TireTraker TPMS works the way Darryl said it does.  That was welcome news as we both like the system, including the small sensors and the rechargeable monitor, and we both like Darryl.  He and Fonda had things to do today so I borrowed his hose crimper pliers before they left.

Linda and Marilyn left shortly after Butch and Fonda and drove to Blythe, California to do some grocery shopping and sight-seeing.  That left me with some alone time to concentrate on getting some things done that I have needed to work on for a week, such as categorizing FMCA seminars, and have just not found (made) the time.  I value and enjoy my work with the FMCA National Education Committee but we have a significant personal investment in our presence here in Quartzsite, and although we will likely return here again in the years to come that is not guaranteed, and this could turn out to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.  The FMCA work took about an hour to complete and e-mail too Jim A., with who has been the lead person on this.

I also needed to make a minor change to the Aqua-Hot expansion tank plumbing and turn the burner back on.  I removed the overflow hose, shortened it, re-routed it, and re-connected it to the drain tube on the tank.  I also tried to tighten the clamp on the middle zone pump hose.  I noted that the coolant level was at the ‘minimum cold’ mark on the expansion tank.  I will check everything again tomorrow.

With the Aqua-Hot project done I decided to replace the old Sentry turbo boost gauge with the new VDO gauge.  I removed the dashboard cover, disconnected the lightbulb connectors, removed the retaining bracket, and pulled the gauge out the front of the dashboard.  I removed the lightbulb socket to give me better access to the main air fitting and undid that, completely freeing the unit from the dashboard.  I pulled the light socket out of the new gauge to give me more room to put the air fitting on and to check the bulb type.  It was a miniature glass wedge base 12VDC 3W and will need to be replaced with a 24V, 3W bulb.  I then slipped the gauge into the dashboard from the front and secured it with the supplied bracket on the back side.  Linda and Marilyn returned at this point so I quit working on the gauge, put the cover back on the dashboard, and helped bring in the groceries.  I will have to get the 24V bulb and also rewire the leads to match the harness connectors.

We had a light lunch and then drove down to the market area and wandered through the big tent RV show.  We got new Ballisti-Tech screen protectors for our Samsung Galaxy S III smartphones.  We also strolled through a small part of the Tyson Wells and Prospectors Panorama areas.  When we left the RV show we headed south on US-95 to the BLM Roadrunner STVA so Marilyn could see the Quartzfest RVs in the desert.  We found Lou and Val Petkus at their 5th wheel and visited briefly before heading back to town.  The light was good and the sun was still high enough that I made an impromptu decision to climb Q Mountain and try to get pictures of the RVs spread across the desert around Quartzsite.

I got my pictures, and got off the mountain before it got dark, but missed the best color, which we saw while driving back to camp to close up the rig before going to dinner.  The Geeks were out viewing and photographing the sunset before walking to the Grubstake restaurant for dinner so and we chatted with them briefly and then drove to Crazy Jerry’s for our evening meal.  The very thin crust mushroom, onion, and tomato no-cheese pizza was excellent and the French fries were also good.  When we got back to our coach Linda prepared some fresh strawberries for desert.

After visiting with Jim and Chris on Wednesday we decided that we would join the Quartzsite Yacht Club, which claims to have the largest membership of any yacht club in the country (world?, universe?) at over 7,500., although we later heard that it was more than 9,000.  Membership is $30 which gets you a hat, T-shirt, membership card and certificate.  Apparently the membership is good at other (real) yacht clubs that honor reciprocal arrangements.  We had planned to join today but did not fit it in.  It may be Sunday or even a day next week at this point.

I spent some time transferring photos from my camera to my laptop computer and our NAS unit.  I processed three panoramas and three individual images taken on Q Mountain, checked my e-mail, and went to bed.

Sunset glow looking NE from 'Q' Mountain.

Sunset glow looking NE from ‘Q’ Mountain.

2015/01/24 (S) Lake Havasu City

We were up at 7:15 AM and I brewed a pot of coffee while Linda showered.  I took my turn and also trimmed up my beard a bit.  Marilyn came over around 8:25 AM and we all had coffee followed by breakfast.  Linda and I had granola while Marilyn had toast and jam.  She is not that found of breakfast and does not care for milk or milk substitutes.

I removed some of the parts boxes from the back of the Element to eliminate the rattling just in case we decided to drive in to the Desert Bar on the way back from Lake Havasu City (LHC).  We left around 9:15 AM and headed up AZ-95 towards Parker.  It was a cool morning with clear skies and the sun lit up the mountains to the west and north.  When we got to Parker we decided to cross the Colorado River into California and take the Parker Dam Road 17 miles up to Parker Dam, drive across back into Arizona, re-connect with AZ-95, and continue north to LHC.

We knew that the stretch of the River from the dam downstream to Parker had quite a few RV Parks, campgrounds, and mobile home communities because we caught glimpses of some of them from AZ-95, or saw signs for them, the last time we were in LHC.  The drive from Parker to LHC is very scenic but you do not have a view of the river most of the time.  Much of the drive from Parker to the dam on the California side, however, was close to water level so we were able to see the resorts on both sides of the river.  We had also heard that there were wild burros along the California route and indeed there were.  We saw five total, two of them just before the dam.  They appear to be docile animals, but they are wild, and you are not allowed to feed or harass them.

Once we got to LHC we followed the signs for the London Bridge and found the parking lot and visitor center.  We watched a video on the history of the London Bridge, which was actually the second most recent in a long succession of bridges across the River Thames dating back before Roman Times.  The Bridge was purchased, disassembled, moved, and reconstructed in LHC.  It was placed at the entrance to a peninsula and then a channel was dug out under it and connected to the Colorado River on either end, turning the peninsula into an island.  There is an “English Village” at the base of the bridge on the mainland side, which was not very special, but a wonderful pedestrian path winds along the channel all the way down to Rotary Park.  The air was cool and the wind was very strong, but the sun was very warm and we had a lovely stroll.

After walking the path we drove over the bridge and around the island, stopping at one of the reproduction 1/8 scale lighthouses.  The LHC Lighthouse Association has erected some two dozen scale replicas of U. S. Lighthouses.  The ones on the island are all replicas of lighthouses from the Great Lakes while the ones on the Arizona shore are east coast replicas and the ones on the California shore are west coast replicas.  While we were driving Linda researched places we might be able to eat lunch and settled on The Black Bear Diner.  She and Marilyn had garden burgers with French fries and I had the Sweet Garden Harvest Salad.  All of the food was very good, and I was particularly pleased with the salad, which had raisins, dried cranberries, nuts, fresh strawberries, and shredded coconut with a honey Dijon dressing.

The restaurant was in a corner of the parking lot for the Albertson’s grocery store so we went in looking for regular Silk soy creamer.  They did not have any so we started back to Quartzsite and stopped at the Basha’s market on the south end of town.  They had the Silk Vanilla Soy Creamer, not the regular, but I got some anyway.  They also had a nice selection of Daiya cheeses and vegan sausages.  We picked up some sourdough bread and preserves on our way to the checkout.  Of all the food stores we have been in Basha’s was the nicest so far.

By the time we got to Parker I was getting tired so I pulled into the casino parking lot.  I switched places with Linda and she drove the rest of the way to Q.  Back at camp she and Marilyn went to the apartment and started assembling a 500 piece puzzle on the dining table.  As I do on any day that I have taken a lot of pictures I transferred them from my camera to my computer and backed them up to the NAS unit.  I used the Microsoft Image Composite Editor to create two panoramic images of the California mountains just south of LHC.

None of us were hungry enough to warrant fixing dinner so we snacked on hummus and chips (vegan junk food).  Marilyn went back to the apartment at 9 PM and we went to bed shortly thereafter.  A long day of fresh air and sunshine had once again worn us out.

2025/01/25 (N) Visitors

Linda& Marilyn at the London Bridge English village.  It's a real London phone booth, but no phone.

Linda& Marilyn at the London Bridge English village. It’s a real London phone booth, but no phone.

Today was basically a stay at home day.  Marilyn is officially “on retreat” and spent part of the day by herself reading and contemplating.  I made coffee for breakfast, as usual, and Linda made her amazing vegan cinnamon rolls for brunch.  They were brunch because they take hours to make and she did not feel like getting up early enough to have them ready by breakfast and we did not expect her to.

Butch dropped Fonda at church and then came back to get me on his way to the Big Tent RV Show.  Today was the last day of the show so I bought a 2″ wide roll of rescue tape and got three smaller rolls in the deal.  I bought more of the Carnu-B wax but the vendor was out of the Metal Shine cleaner.  That’s the risk one takes waiting until the end of a rally or show.  I also bought two small LEDs that looked like the might work in our spotter/downlights.  We then stopped by Mac McCoy’s booth to chat.  He was busy with customers but Charles Martin was there so we chatted with him instead.

We got back to camp just after 11 AM as Linda was putting the finishing touches on the cinnamon rolls and Marilyn joined us for brunch.  I tried one of the new LED bulbs but it would not fit in our fixtures.  I dealt with some e-mail and thought about spending the rest of the day writing but decided to work outside instead.  My outside task today was cleaning some of the bus windows using the Carnu-B Metal Shine to remove hard water stains.

Chris and Jim of Geeks On Tour did their weekly live broadcast from their rig and then started making preparations to leave.  We had two cinnamon rolls left so Linda took them over as a going away gift.  Charles and Connie Martin dropped in and a short time later Mara and her friend Michael arrived.  Marilyn came over followed by Butch and Fonda so we circled the chairs and had quite a gabfest.

Eventually everyone left and I returned to my window cleaning while Linda and her sister started preparing dinner.  Linda made her wonderful warm Farro dish with kale and dried cranberries while Marilyn made a shredded Brussels sprout dish with pistachios and dried cranberries.  Both dishes were excellent and the use of dried cranberries in each one tied them together nicely.

Linda and Marilyn went to the apartment to watch Downton Abbey but the satellite receiver was not activated so they worked on the jigsaw puzzle instead.  I stayed in the coach and took a call from Lou Petkus who had questions about RVillage.  I then consolidated my blog posts from the first seven days of October (2014) into a single post, selected five photos to go with it, and uploaded it to our WordPress site, the first post I have done since September 30, 2014.  If I do one consolidated post each evening I should be caught up to our arrival in Quartzite on December 12, 2014 in about two weeks.  After that I may go back to daily posts or continue to consolidate three or four days at a time.  I would like to be caught up and making current/daily posts by the time we pull out of here on March 1st.

London Bridge in Lake Havasu City (LHC), AZ.

London Bridge in Lake Havasu City (LHC), AZ.

2015/01/26 (M) A Plethora of Jims

We had toast and jam (strawberry preserves and orange marmalade) for breakfast along with our usual coffee and juice.  Jim A. called just after breakfast to update me on work we are doing for FMCA HQ.  Jim G. (&  Chris) pulled out yesterday.  Jim B. (& Barb) are here for the winter.  Jim L. (The brother of owner Joe L.) manages this place and stops by almost every day.  I think we have met several other Jims along the way.  When we meet someone new I just assume their name is Jim until I learn otherwise.  This winter has truly seen a plethora of Jims.

Jim and Barb let me know they were headed to Blythe, California to go grocery shopping and offered to pick up anything we might need.  Butch and Fonda also left but Larry and Sandy did not, which was unusual for them.  Linda and Marilyn wanted to walk around Tyson Wells so I drove them down to Kuehn Street and Central Avenue, stopping at the Post Office on the way.  I stopped on the way back at Herb’s Hardware store to get some 000 steel wool and then topped off my fuel tank at the Union 76 station.

Connie Martin visiting us at the Camp Liebherrvile / Brocker.

Connie Martin visiting us at the Camp Liebherrvile / Brocker.

Back at our coach I started assembling my blog posts from October 8 through 15 into a single post and selecting photos to go with it.  I do not like to sit and do this kind of work for long stretches of time so I got out my cleaning supplies and worked on the outside of some of the bus windows.  I tried using straight vinegar to clean them followed by rubbing with the steel wool, and tried it in the opposite order.  I decided to stick with steel wool first figuring the vinegar would help clean it off.  I did not apply wax to the outsides of the windows as I want them as clean as possible before I wax them.  Rain was forecast for today and it eventually started so I moved indoors and cleaned the insides of several windows on the passenger side of the coach.  These were clean enough that I used the Carnu-B spay wax that I bought yesterday on them.  The rain let up so I moved back outside and worked on the upper windshields.  I got both of them steel wooled and wiped down with vinegar and got a coat of wax on the driver side glass before it started drizzling again.  I put my supplies away again and headed back inside.  Linda called and asked to be retrieved so I drove back down to Kuehn and Central to pick them up.

Linda put out some hummus, chips, and grapes for lunch and we heated up the leftover Farro dish and divided it up between us.  Marilyn went back to the apartment to take a nap and Linda laid down to read and snooze while I continued working on e-mails and blog posts.  Gary Hatt, publisher of Bus Conversion Magazine, sent me several photos of himself standing in front of his Eagle.  I selected the one I thought would work best to go with his “Publisher’s Letter” in the January 2015 issue, post-processed it several different ways, and sent it back with an explanation of what did and why.  I also got the blog post for the second seven days of October completed and uploaded before dinner.

Mara Culp and Charles Martin visiting us at Camp Liebherrville / Brockner.

Mara Culp and Charles Martin visiting us at Camp Liebherrville / Brockner.

As the afternoon progressed the rain settled in.  Although not heavy, like a thunderstorm, it was steady well into the evening.  Jim and Barb returned and Marilyn eventually came back over to the coach.  That got Linda out of bed and working on dinner.  She made a dish that has become a standard; pasta with onions, garlic, mushrooms, and sun-dried tomatoes lightly sautéed in olive oil.  Instead of wheat noodles, however, she used “zoodles.”  Zoodles are long slender pieces of zucchini made with a hand operated SpiraLife spiral slicer.  They get added to the sauté just before serving and are simply heated rather than cooked.  We had a green salad with Ken’s Steak House Asian Sesame dressing, dried cranberries and pistachios.  We had slices of a sourdough baguette with pepper spiced olive oil for dipping and Linda and I had a glass of Franzia sangria.  Fresh strawberries for desert completed a nice meal.

Marilyn helped with the dishes after which she and Linda checked on the developing storm out east and then played Scrabble and other games while I stayed out of their way and worked on this post.  Hey, it’s a small kitchen.

The rain stopped at 7:38 PM but started again in earnest around 8:30 PM.  It was still raining at 9:15 PM when Marilyn went back to the apartment and the forecast said we could have rain overnight until 5 AM tomorrow.  We have had very little rain here this winter so I am sure this is welcomed.  It will be interesting to see if the precipitation triggers any sort of desert bloom tomorrow on our drive to Yuma or perhaps the following day.

Linda’s iPad battery was down to about 10% at 9:45 PM so she retired to the bedroom, where the charger is located, and continued to read for a bit longer.  I am usually very sleepy an hour after dinner but get my second wind a couple of hours after that.  I had an e-mail from Gary at Bus Conversion Magazine regarding the use of soft water in the Webasto-based Aqua-Hot in his Eagle and sent him a reply.  I then went through the article on Butch’s main engine air-compressor failure, finalized all of the changes, and uploaded it to our Dropbox along with the photo files.  I updated my BCM Article Status Sheet and uploaded it to the BCM folder in our Dropbox.  I then e-mailed Gary and editor Mike Sullivan to let them know that the new material was ready and available.  By the time I finished it was going on midnight.

 

2015/01/21 (W) Quartzfest

Quartzfest 2015 at the Road Runner BLM area south of Quartzsite, AZ.

Quartzfest 2015 at the Road Runner BLM area south of Quartzsite, AZ.

There are so many things going on this week it’s hard to decide what to do.  Linda decided to do laundry right after breakfast because her sister is arriving tomorrow and she doesn’t want to have to do it while Marilyn is here.  The short list included:

  • SKPs Chapter 6 Loose Gathering at Plomosa Road BLM north of town (we are members of Chapter 6).
  • Quartzfest at US-95 MM 99 south of town on BLM land (we are both amateur radio operators).
  • Bluebird Wanderlodge Rally south of town at BLM La Posa South (Bus Conversion Magazine would love to have photos of this gathering).
  • The “Big Tent” RV Show (there are a couple of things we are looking to buy).
Quartfest is where RVing Hams meet up.  There were almost 300 rigs, all with radios and antenna.

Quartfest is where RVing Hams meet up. There were almost 300 rigs, all with radios and antenna.

While Linda was doing laundry I finished up yesterday’s blog post and started today’s post.  A large APS (Arizona Power System) truck pulled into our camp around 10 AM.  Jim L. had contacted them and succeeded in getting them to send someone over to check the power.  They happened to have someone in town already, so he got here, diagnosed and fixed the problem, and was gone before Jim arrived on his bicycle.  We knew the voltage was high and the linesman confirmed that.  The transformer had several tap positions and he was able to change it to provide more windings and reduce the voltage.  We were consistently seeing 127 to 131 VAC (to neutral) on each leg (258 VAC across the legs) and we know it was rising above 132 because it was causing all of our power protection devices to trip, cutting off the shore power.  We are now seeing 118 to 122 VAC (240 VAC across the legs), which is near perfect.

A Crank-IR antenna from Stepp-IR.

A Crank-IR antenna from Stepp-IR.

Butch, Fonda, Jim, and Barb were all gone but I walked over to let Jim and Chris know that the power would be off for about 10 minutes.  I was too late.  The power had already been cut and restored and Jim was outside checking their connection.  Linda was on her way back from the laundry room and we ended up chatting with Jim and Chris for a while.  Chris and Linda went back to what they were doing and Jim L. showed up on his bicycle so we filled him in on the morning’s events.  We agreed to get-together at 4 PM for happy hour and went back to our various chores.

The wind had come up so we decided to use the ratcheting tie-down straps I bought a few weeks ago.  We rigged up two of them between the ends of the patio awning and the anchors we found weeks ago with Butch’s metal detector.  We watched the wind for a while and decided to just put the awning up.  Better safe than sorry.  Been there, done that, bought the new awning fabric (in our previous motorhome).

The Crank-IR fully deployed.

The Crank-IR fully deployed.

With the laundry done and the awnings secured we headed for the southern desert to find the Quartzfest and Bluebird/Wanderlodge encampments.  I set the 2 meter radio in the car to 146.55 MHz simplex mode.  Quartzfest (and RV hams generally) use that frequency for talk-in, info nets, and general contact purposes.  Quartzfest was at the Road Runner BLM Short Term Visitor Area (STVA) just south of Mile Marker 99 on the west side of US-95.  As we were driving down someone called on frequency requesting assistance.  They had just exited I-10 at exit 19 and did not know how to get to Quartzfest from there, so I gave them directions.

When we got there we checked in with the camp host to confirm that we did not need entry permits for a daytime visit.  He directed us to the area where Quartzfest was taking place and we eventually found the check-in station after Gordon West (Gordy), WB6NOA gave us directions over the air.  We met him going out of the sheltered area as we were going in.  We walked around looking at, and photographing, antenna setups and stopped to talk to a few people.  Part way through our stroll I thought I heard someone calling my name, albeit somewhat indistinctly.  I looked back over my right shoulder and realized we had just walked past the Montana 5th wheel trailer and pickup truck belonging to Lou and Val Petkus.  We had a short visit with them and then continued on our walkabout.

That is a Hi-Q HF antenna, just like the one we have but with a different capacitance hat.

That is a Hi-Q HF antenna, just like the one we have but with a different capacitance hat.

With the wind came dust and we decided to drive around the area and then leave to find the Bluebirds.  We headed back towards town as far as the BLM La Paz Long Term Visitor Area (LTVA) and turned east into La Paz North.  The other side of the road was the La Paz Tyson Wells LTVA but we recalled Jim Guld telling us that the Bluebird Motor Coach / Wanderlodge group was at La Paz North.

We drove in quite a ways and eventually found the BMC/Wanderlodge buses.  There were very few people around, and those that were there stayed in their coaches.  One guy came out, probably to see who we were and what we were doing, so we introduced ourselves and explained why were there.  He directed us to the rally organizer’s bus, but he wasn’t there.  There were 28 buses formed into a circle, noses pointed in towards the center, and I shot a full 360 degree panorama from the fire circle at the center.  I then shot at least two photos of each bus from just off either side of the front.  More buses were arranged in a second, incomplete circle outside the main one, but those rigs were more difficult to photograph.

We saw some fairly sophisticated portable ham setups at Quartzfest.

We saw some fairly sophisticated portable ham setups at Quartzfest.  It reminded us of Field Day.

A classic older Bluebird Wanderlodge outfitted for serious desert boondocking.

A classic older Bluebird Wanderlodge outfitted for serious desert boondocking.

Linda was keeping an eye on the time and at 3 PM we started working our way towards our camp.  We were back before 4 PM and I made sure Butch/Fonda and Jim/Barb were invited to join the happy hour.  We all gathered at the appointed hour in front of our coach.  Everyone brought a chair, a snack to share, and a beverage of their choice.  The bus provided some shelter from the strong northeast winds and the very warm late afternoon sun balanced out the chilly air until it set, at which point our happy hour gathering ended.

The Bluebird/Wanderlodge logo done in rocks on the desert floor.  These folks were serious about their gathering.

The Bluebird/Wanderlodge logo done in rocks on the desert floor. These folks were serious about their gathering.

Jim and Chris stuck around to see our coach and we looked at a few videos on YouTube that he made with his Quadcopter mounted Go-Pro camera.  We also introduced them to the music videos of the group “OK Go.”  The groups’ most recent video was shot entirely with a Quadcopter mounted video camera.  We moved over to their rig, which we had not been in before, and ended up talking for another hour.  Some of that conversation was about diet and health.  They still had work to do this evening, and we had not had dinner, so we returned to our coach a little after 7 PM.

While Linda prepared two of the Thai Kitchen noodle soup bowls we keep on hand for such occasions I checked the level of the coolant in the expansion reservoir for the Aqua-Hot.  I had turned the unit off two days ago to let it cool down and most of the coolant in the reservoir had been drawn back in as it did.  There was only about a half inch of coolant in the reservoir so I added some of the 50/50 premix that we carry with us, bringing the level halfway between the “Minimum Cold” and “Maximum Cold” marks.  I turned the burner on, let it run through a full cycle while we ate our soup, and then checked the reservoir as soon as it shut off.  The level was less than an inch below the bottom of the fill cap, so I had guessed correctly how much to add.  I am going to let it cool off again and see where the level ends up.

Happy hour at Camp Lieberville.  (L-2-R): LInda (hidden), the Gulds, Williams, and Brockners.

Happy hour at Camp Lieberville. (L-2-R): LInda (hidden), the Gulds, Williams, and Brockners.

After working on this blog post while my camera battery charged I transferred today’s photographs to my computer, organized them, and backed them up to our NAS unit.  It was yet another long but very satisfying day.

 

2015/01/20 (T) Buses, A-C’s, and a Get-Together

Today was another day of variety.  After our usual coffee and granola I drove over to the Quartzsite Market Place dry-camping area where the Western GM Bus Rally was still taking place.  I met with Larry and Carol Hall and spent over an hour photographing their GM PD4106 bus conversion.  It was very nicely done and they had straightened it up so that there wasn’t anything extraneous lying around inside.  Larry was also kind enough to move the bus several times to allow me to get an angle of view with a good background and lighting.  An article on this bus conversion will appear in a future issue of Bus Conversion Magazine.

Larry & Carol Hall's GM PD4106 bus conversion at the Quarzsite Market Place.

Larry & Carol Hall’s GM PD4106 bus conversion at the Quarzsite Market Place.

When I was done with the photo shoot I returned to our coach to transfer the image files from my camera to my computer, organize them, and back up them up to our NAS device.  For lunch we had tofu hotdogs wrapped in tortillas with mustard, onions, and pickle relish.  I then talked to Butch briefly about the TPMS vendor Linda and I spoke to yesterday in the “Big Tent” and discovered that we had talked to different vendors about different products.  I also let him know that I was going to work on our air-conditioners.

The three house air-conditioners (A-C) in are bus are Cruise-air split units and are initially controlled by three 12 VDC switches on the lower right dashboard.  Those switches get their power from a single 2 Amp fuse in the low voltage distribution panel.  The A-C’s did not work the last time I tried to use them (at Martin Diesel) and I found that this fuse was blown (open) so that was the place to start.

I pulled the old 2 A blade style fuse out of the distribution block and checked for voltage on the supply side and no voltage on the load side, and that is what I found.  I then checked for resistance from the load side of the fuse holder to ground with all three switches off and with each switch turned on, one at a time.  The resistance was infinite (open circuit) with all three switches off (as expected), ~45 Ohms for A-C switches 1 and 3, and ~450 ohms for A-C switch number 2.  All three switches control relays in the DS rear corner of the bus that switch on AC power from the breakers in the AC distribution panel.  Two of the switches also control the solenoid air-valve that controls the air-powered shutters for the two condenser units in the front spare tire bay.  So it was reasonable that one of the switches might show a different resistance from the other two when closed, but at this point I did not know if any of these measured values were correct or even reasonable.

I borrowed a 6 Amp auto-resettable circuit breaker from Butch and inserted it into the fuse slot.  Our testing revealed that switches 1 and 3 caused the breaker to trip but switch 2 did not, and it did not matter whether the 120 VAC power for each unit was turned on at the circuit breaker.  The evaporator units and control panels in the house, however, did not come on unless the 120 VAC power was on along with the 12 VDC corresponding dashboard switch.  That confirmed that the dashboard switches are controlling AC power relays.  I knew from previous work that those relays were in the driver’s side rear corner of the bus/bedroom but our testing indicated that they were probably not the problem.

The common element for switches 1 and 3 was the MAC solenoid air valve on the air panel in the bay under the driver’s seat.  This valve controls air-powered shutters at the front of the spare tire bay where the living room and kitchen A-C condenser/compressor units are installed.  The shutters are held closed by air pressure and held open by a spring in the absence of air pressure.  I keep the air supply valved off when we are parked to minimize air leaks and reduce how often the auxiliary air-compressor runs, but when compressed air is applied to the valve, which is ‘normally open’ when the front A-C units are off, the air pressure closes the shutters.  If either front-located A-C unit is enabled at the dashboard the MAC valve closes off the air supply and vents the pressure on the shutter actuator, allowing the spring to pull them open.

I disconnected the wires from the solenoid and confirmed which wire was the +12 VDC supply to the terminal strip.  I checked the resistance of the solenoid coil and it appeared to be shorted, so I left it disconnected.  We rechecked the A-C units and the two located in the front bay would still not turn on.  Butch figured that there was probably a limit switch on the shutters to prevent power from being applied to those two A-C’s unless the shutters were open.  I loosened the fitting at the valve to relieve the pressure and the shutters opened up.

With the shutters open and the solenoid disconnected we finally got all three A-C’s working, so we have fixed the problem for now but not permanently as the system not does function as designed.  As a side note, it appears the three control switches are incorrectly wired.  Switch 1 is the front A-C, switch 2 is the center unit, and switch 3 is the bedroom.  Switches 1 and 3 are wired to control the shutters for the spare tire bay but the compressor/condenser units for the front and middle A-C’s (1 & 2) are located there.  My guess is that this has been miswired since the coach was built.  The wiring needs to be corrected and I added it to my project list.  Until then, the “fix” is to just make sure all three switches are ‘ON’ anytime we are going to use any of the air-conditioners, ensuring that the shutters are open and the units will operate.

Camp Lieberville in Quartzsite, AZ (our coach is not shown).

Camp Lieberville in Quartzsite, AZ (our coach is not shown).

We left around 3:40 PM and drove over to the Quartzsite Yacht Club for the 4 PM RVillage get-together that founder/CEO Curtis Coleman had scheduled.  Curtis was already there with Patti (the Village Tart) as were Chris Dunphy and Cherie Ve Ard (Technomadia), Jim and Chris Guld (Geeks On Tour), and our friends Butch and Fonda Williams (MCI MC-9 NJT and W9MCI and K9MCI respectively).  Lots of other folks showed up including Forrest and Mary Clark, the first two RVillage Ambassadors.

We left a little after 6 PM and drove out to the WINs area on Plomosa Road to deliver a birthday card to Mara.  Her sister and brother-in-law were there but left shortly after we arrived so we stayed until after 8 PM visiting with Mara.  When we got back to our coach Linda heated up the leftover root vegetables for dinner.  She read while I updated my BCM article status spreadsheet, checked e-mail and RVillage, and worked on this blog post.

 

2015/01/19 (M) The Big Tent

I got up at 7 AM, made coffee, and had some while Linda slept in.  I left at 8:15 AM and drove to Lloyd and Verda DeGerald’s motorhome on East Kuehn Street.  Lloyd was still there so I was finally able to purchase the Webasto flame sensor (photocell) I needed for our second/spare Webasto DBW2010.75 burner.  I then drove the short distance west on East Kuehn Street to the entrance of the Quartzsite Market Place camping area and drove in to the Eagles International rally.

This GM bus conversion tows a VW bus with matching paint.  I wonder if they use the VW to pull the bus out when it gets stuck?

This GM bus conversion tows a VW bus with matching paint. I wonder if they use the VW to pull the bus out when it gets stuck?

I grabbed some general purpose bus photos while Byron Pigg cleaned up the area around his bus so I could photograph the exterior for Bus Conversion Magazine.  While I was working Butch called to let me know he was almost back from Blythe and wanted to meet Gary, the owner/publisher of BCM.  Before Butch arrived Neal Sunderland, VE6NL drove up and looked over Gary’s MCI MC-9 Moose Creek Motor Cabin.  Gary was over talking to the GM bus owners but came back and had a long chat with Neal.  I exchanged contact information with Neal and we agreed to meet later at our coach so he and his wife could see it.

Eagle buses certainly make very nice motorhome conversions. This one was pulling out of the Eagles International rally at Quartzsite.

Eagle buses certainly make very nice motorhome conversions. This one was pulling out of the Eagles International rally at Quartzsite.

When I was done “working” I returned to camp and had a bite to eat.  I then transferred the photos I had just taken to my computer, organized them according to subject, and backed them up to our NAS device.  By the time I was done Linda was ready to go to the market area.

Quartzsite is a place with a sense of humor.  Central Ave I-10 overpass.

Quartzsite is a place with a sense of humor. Central Ave I-10 overpass.

Quartzsite is, metaphorically, a “big tent” but there is literally a Big Tent set up here that houses the Big Tent Sports, Vacation, and RV Show.  The Show started this past Saturday but today was our first chance to go.  Besides, our RV insurance agents (Charles and Chris Yust of C&C Marketing) had advised us at the SKP Happy Hour to avoid the weekends and come during the week in the afternoon.  Because traffic was so congested on Central Avenue heading south from Main Street to Kuehn Street we decided to walk the 1.4 miles from our coach to market area.  Along the way we ran into Mark and Emily Fagan.  They are photographers and writers and I recognized them immediately from Escapees Magazine and their blog.  We introduced ourselves and had a nice chat before continuing our separate ways.

At least they are in agreement about the size.

At least they are in agreement about the size.

We walked through the Big Tent, stopping at a few booths and quickly passing by many others.  There was a much higher percentage of non-RV vendors than we normally see at RV rallies, and significant duplication of others.  There were at least 18 vendors selling some kind of miracle pain reliever and a dozen vendors selling LEDs.  We did, however, spend some time with the TST TPMS vendor who was from the factory and will probably go back and buy a complete system from him.  We also stopped at the FMCA booth and chatted with FMCA President Charlie Adcock and ran into RVillage founder/CEO Curtis Coleman there.  We lingered awhile at the Carnu-B booth watching a demonstration of products for cleaning, polishing, and waxing the exterior of a motorhome.  We spent a few minutes at the Escapees RV Club booth and talked at length with the folks at European Motorhome Tours and The Ultimate Road Trip (Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon Territory, and Alaska).  If money were no object we would do the European Tours.  They are typically 30 days and sometimes more than 40 and include the motorhome rental, all of the overnight stops, admission to key attractions, and some of the meals.  The main added cost, besides flying there and back, are groceries and fuel.

Charlie Addcock, FMCA National President, in the Big Tent at Quartzsite, AZ.

Charlie Adcock, FMCA National President, in the Big Tent at Quartzsite, AZ.

Neal Sunderland called while we were still at the Tent and we agreed to meet him and Nora at our coach at 4 PM to see it and chat.  Lou called while we were visiting and we agreed to meet for dinner at 5:30 PM at Crazy Jerry’s.  We had vegan pizza and sat until almost 8 PM talking.  While we were there I got a call from Curtis Coleman of RVillage inviting us to drinks at the Quartzsite Yacht Club.  He was there with Patti and the Gulds (Chris and Jim).  The QYC is across the street from Crazy Jerry’s, so that was easy.  The Amber Bock on tap was very tasty and we were there until 9:45 PM.

 

2015/01/18 (N) The Desert Bar

Today was divided into several distinct pieces.  At 8:30 AM we connected Linda’s iPad to our Verizon MiFi and Facetimed with our son, daughter-in-law, and grand-daughter.  At 25 months her vocabulary is developing quickly and she recognizes us on the iPad as Grandma Linda and Grandpa Bruce.

The Nellie E. Saloon at The Desert Bar outside Parker, AZ.

The Nellie E. Saloon at The Desert Bar outside Parker, AZ.

When we concluded the call I made a quick run over to the Quartzsite Market Place to touch base with Gary Hatt and the folks at the Eagles International bus rally and the FMCA Western GM Bus Chapter rally.  I returned to pick up Linda and we chatted briefly with Jim Guld of Geeks On Tour.  He and Chris are staying at our encampment for at least this week.

Linda at The Desert Bar.

Linda at The Desert Bar, upper level.

We headed up AZ-95 to Plomosa Road and headed east into the BLM camping area to pick up Mara.  She is camped with the WINs (Wandering Individuals Network) but we drove past their camp and she flagged us down on the return.  We got a brief tour of her Fleetwood Bounder and then headed for the Desert Bar.  It was over 40 miles to get there with the last five on a primitive road that is not regularly maintained.  It was very rough in places but our Honda Element had enough ground clearance to handle it and 4-wheel drive was not needed.  It was, however, a slow drive.  There is also a network of rougher trails that ATVs use to get to the bar.

The lower level of The Desert Bar.  Lots of people for a Sunday afternoon.

The lower level of The Desert Bar. Lots of people for a Sunday afternoon.

One of the buildings that makes up The Desert Bar is the Nellie E. Saloon.  It is named after the mine that operated there at one time.  The bar began very humbly in 1983 and has grown considerably since that time.  It is the quintessential “let’s build it and see if they come” venture.  And come they did.  It is completely off-grid and powered mostly by solar energy, although we did see a propane tank which we presumed fuels the cooking grills.  Hours are weekends (Sat and Sun) noon to 6 PM from the first weekend in October to the last weekend in April.  We got there a little before it opened but there were already people there and by 1 PM there were at least 200 people milling around and eating and the live band started playing.  It was an older but active crowd, reflective of what we generally see around Quartzsite.  The Desert Bar has moved beyond famous and is now legendary.

Linda with our friend, Mara, at The Desert Bar.

Linda with our friend, Mara, at The Desert Bar.

The beer was canned but cold and fairly priced, especially considering the location.  We had veggie burgers that were tasty and cost $3.50 each.  We shared an order of garlic fries with Mara and they were excellent.  There were lots of other choices on the menu as well, so of which we could have had.  As we were getting ready to leave we spotted riders on horseback coming up the road so we stuck around long enough to photograph their arrival.  These were the original, 1 HP, ATVs of the American west.  We had a great time there and it was certainly a unique place and experience for us.

The dance floor at The Desert Bar.

The dance floor at The Desert Bar.

We left at 2 PM, stopped at the Wal-Mart in Parker, and got back to our rig at 3:30 PM. I dropped Linda off and headed over to Lloyd DeGerald’s place.  Verda was there but Lloyd had their credit card machine with him so I said I would come back tomorrow morning to buy the Webasto flame detector photocell.  I then headed back to the Eagles International and Western GM bus rallies to grab some general bus photos.

Linda and Mara enjoying the vibe at The Desert Bar.

Linda and Mara enjoying the vibe at The Desert Bar.

Gary and I touched base with Buck Bolding to get squared away with arrangements to photograph his Eagle later in the week.  We also walked over to the Western GM rally and made arrangements with Larry Hall to photograph his bus on Tuesday morning.

Byron Pigg and his wife Betty had straightened up their 1985 model 15 Eagle so I spent some time photographing the interior.  The rally was having a pot luck (carry in) meal at 4:30 PM and invited me to stay so I had some plain spaghetti and green salad.  While I was there I met Rico and Monica, a couple from Europe that have spent four months each winter for the last 15 years traveling around the world in a decommissioned Swiss military truck with a large trailer behind it.  Rico drives buses in Europe for a living and works enough hours in eight months to earn his full year’s pay, which gets paid out to him once a month all year long and making it convenient to fund their annual travels.  Gary and I chatted with folks until it was dark and I finally left to go back to my coach.

Patrons arrive at The Desert Bar on the original, 1 HP, ATV.

Patrons arrive at The Desert Bar on the original, 1 HP, ATV.

BCM publisher Gary Hatt (L) at the Eagles International bus rally at the Quartzsite Market Place drycamp area.

BCM publisher Gary Hatt (L) at the Eagles International bus rally at the Quartzsite Market Place drycamp area.

I spent the rest of the evening copying photographs from my camera to my computer and working on this blog post.  Somewhere in all of that I got a phone call from Lou Petkus of the SKP photographers BOF and we figured out a time/place to meet.

Sunset over 'Q' Mountain from the Eagles International bus rally site.

Sunset over ‘Q’ Mountain from the Eagles International bus rally site.

 

2015/01/17 (S) Lake Havasu City

We set multiple alarms last night to make sure we woke up at 5:00 AM this morning.  We skipped coffee and breakfast and were on the road to Lake Havasu City at 5:40 AM.  We were headed there to attend the Balloon Festival and wanted to be in position for the first balloon launch at 7:45 AM.  The program said it would be a “mass ascension.”  We presumed that meant 80+ balloons launching at the same time but that was not exactly what happened.

Lake Havasu City Balloon Festival kicks off with the National Anthem as the Flag goes airborn.

Lake Havasu City Balloon Festival kicks off with the National Anthem as the Flag goes airborn.

We were early enough that the $10 we paid for “preferred parking” actually got us a decent parking space.  We were in position at the “balloon field” by 7:15 AM and watched the process of inflating a dozen “shaped” balloons that included a Wells Fargo stagecoach, Smokey the Bear head, Hello Kitty, and Yoda head.  A trio of restored WW1 Fokker bi-planes roamed the skies overhead but we did not see any sign of any other balloons and there certainly wasn’t room for any more on the balloon field.

 

 

Fantasy balloons inflated to provide photo ops.

Fantasy balloons inflated to provide photo ops.

7:45 AM came and went and a couple of balloons launched but most remained on the ground.  We then noticed a regular hot air balloon lift off from somewhere north of the festival site, and then another, and another.  It was still not a mass ascension, but eventually there were a few dozen balloons in the air and drifting our way.  We waited a while longer and then the various teams started deflating most of the shaped balloons. We learned later that most of the shaped balloons were inflated to provide photo opportunities and were never intended to take to the air.

Tethered balloon rides were available.

Tethered balloon rides were available.

With the morning balloon launches concluded we sought out food.  The balloon field was surrounded by a double/concentric ring of vendors with most of the food purveyors concentrated in one area.  It was a chilly morning so we found a vendor selling coffee and got in line.  After warming up we found something to eat for breakfast.  We then strolled through the vendor ring but did not find anything we couldn’t live without.

There were quite a few classic cars on display and some were for sale.  There was also an interesting pair of ultralight aircraft, boats, and ATVs on display and for sale.  After seeing all of that we watched a dog agility demonstration.  We returned to our car and had some snacks for lunch and then walked through the carnival area and bought snow cones.  We were waiting for the Fokker bi-planes to do a demonstration when I got a call from our mobile mechanic, Joe Cannarozzi.  He filled me in on what he has been doing and where he is headed over the next few months.

This balloon was no longer airworthy so we were allowed to go inside it.

This balloon was no longer airworthy so we were allowed to go inside it.

By the time I was done talking to Joe we decided we had experienced enough balloon festival for one day.  We returned to our car and I called Frank Griswold from our FMCA Great Lakes a Converted Coaches chapter.  Frank and Sandy own a site at a very nice RV Resort on the north end of Lake Havasu City so we drove up there and visited with them for a while.  LHC has grown dramatically in the last 25 years and is now a very modern, upscale place with a population of 55,000.  We drove over the London Bridge to get to/from the balloon festival venue, which was at a resort on an island, but we did not get a good look at it.

We wrapped up our visit in time to get back to Parker in the daylight and see the amazing scenery we had missed on the drive up in the dark.  We stopped for gas in Parker and filled up for $2.28/gallon.  On the drive from Parker to Quartzsite we watched a long, lingering sunset that finally faded to darkness.  It was another long but satisfying day.

 

Linda was skeptical about being photographed while eating a snow cone.  :-)

Linda was skeptical about being photographed while eating a snow cone. 🙂

2015/01/16 (F) Making Contact

The Aqua-Hot came on a couple times last night for a few minutes and it was nice to hear that old familiar roar and know that it was working the way it is supposed to.  I need to see if I can put a new clamp on the hose that comes out of the middle zone pump.  I also need to shorten and re-route the tube to the expansion tank, but the burner/combustion process is finally working correctly for the first time in 3-1/2 months.  At some point Butch and I will try to figure out what is wrong with the other burner and fix it if we can.  I also need to make the same wiring/connector modifications to the second burner so it is plug-n-play interchangeable with the installed one.

Butch and Fonda decided to make a run to Yuma today.  He needed parts from Home Depot, Lowe’s, or Tractor Supply Company that he figured he could not get in Quartzsite, Blythe, or Parker, although Blythe has a good sized NAPA Auto Parts store.  We chose not to go this time for various reasons, not the least of which was that Linda’s sister is arriving on Thursday and Yuma, along with Los Algodones, Mexico is one of the places we want to take her.  But more immediately we wanted to meet up with Gary Hatt from Bus Conversion Magazine today and attend a get-together that Technomadia scheduled at Beer Belly’s for 1 PM.  I also received an e-mail yesterday that Lou and Val Petkus had arrived in Quartzsite so we are trying to arrange to meet up with them.  Lou is the head staff photographer for the SKPs Escapade in March and I am the assistant staff photographer.

Our out-and-about day, however, did not start until late morning so that left the morning open to get other things done.  As usual, Linda went for a walk while I started writing an article for BCM on the work we did yesterday on our Aqua-Hot.  Linda and I took lots of pictures and I think it will be a solid technical article when I am done.

We left at 11:15 AM and drove to the Quartzsite Market Place dry-camping area.  The entrance is on the north side of Kuehn Street east of Central Avenue (US-95) but is not easy to spot.  We stopped at the Too Crazy Ladies trailer and picked up our engraved SKP Ham BOF call sign tags and Rescue Our Cats sign.  We then took the back entrance into the RV parking area, which is just to the left of the TCL trailer.  It did not take us long to find Gary Hatt back with the Eagles International Bus Rally group.

Gary Hatt, publisher of Bs Conversion Magazine, recently acquired this Eagle bus conversion.

Gary Hatt, publisher of Bs Conversion Magazine, recently acquired this Eagle bus conversion.  We met him for the first time at this Eagles International Bus Conversion Rally in Quartzsite, AZ.  Linda is talking to Aqua-Hot service technician Lloyd DeGerald (left).

When we arrived Lloyd DeGerald was there with his assistant working on the Aqua-Hot in Gary’s recently purchased Eagle bus conversion.  Gary’s friend John was working on other projects on both the Eagle and the MC-9 Moose Creek Motor Cabin.  Lloyd determined that the Webasto controller was not functional and needed to be replaced.  He had a new one for $800 and a used one for $400.  Gary went with the used one and had Lloyd do a full service on the unit as well.  While the technicians were working on the Aqua-Hot Gary gave us a tour of both coaches.  By the time he was done with the tours Lloyd had the Aqua-Hot running very nicely.  Before he left I chatted with him about the photocell flame detector and he said he had one for me at a discounted price.

We walked around the market area visiting the vendor booths by the street to kill a little time and found a particular vendor open who had been closed the last few times Linda checked.  They had organic dried apple slices as well as organic dried veggie chips.  We bought a bag of the cinnamon apple chips and a bag of the veggie chips and had a few of each while we strolled.  We worked our way back to Gary’s buses by 12:45 PM, gathered him up, and walked over to Beer Belly’s “Adult Day Care” (outdoor bar) for the Technomadia RVillage get-together at 1 PM.  It took us a few minutes to spot Chris Dunphy’s signature black hat, as Beer Belly’s was crowded, but we finally did and joined the group that was gathered there.  They have also written articles for BCM but like us had never met Gary in person so I made the necessary introductions.

Beer Belly’s had Amber Bock on tap so Linda and I each had one.  We don’t normally drink at 1 in the afternoon, and beer is not normally my first choice if I am going to drink, but the sun was warm and the beer was cold and it was all good.  We stayed about an hour, chatted with some of the other folks that showed up, and then walked back to Gary’s buses.  We agreed to come back and pick him up at 5:30 PM and drive him to our campsite so he could see our bus and get away from the crowd for a little while.

L-to-R: Gary Hatt's Eagle, his MC-9 Moose Creek Motorcabin, and some of the other Eagle bus conversions at the Eagles International rally.

L-to-R: Gary Hatt’s Eagle, his MC-9 Moose Creek Motorcabin, and some of the other Eagle bus conversions at the Eagles International rally.

Given the timing of our social encounters we decided to have an early dinner.  I was using my iPad when the FedEx truck pulled in.  I went out to meet the truck but Barb beat me to it.  There was one package addressed to Butch so I figured it was the gauges from PartDeal.com but we left the box on a chair by the front door of their bus.  Barb indicated that someone named Jim was supposed to come work on something on Butch and Fonda’s bus and was going to park his motorhome onsite for a few days.  The generator bay door was open so I wondered if Butch was having a problem with the genset.  If so, he had not mentioned it to me.

For dinner Linda made white rice with greens and things and heated up some mock orange chicken she has had in the freezer for a while.  It was a relatively quick and easy meal to prepare but very tasty.  We were just starting to eat when a familiar looking SUV pulled in with two kayaks on top.  It was Chris and Jim Guld of Geeks On Tour.  I knew Jim wasn’t here to fix a generator but was pleased to find out that they were checking out of the Scenic Road RV Park tomorrow and moving in with us for the next week.  We have known them for a few years but never really had a chance to just socialize in a relaxed setting so we are looking forward to a little quiet social time with them.

I left a little after 5 PM to fetch Gary and John and drove by the DeGerald’s motorhome first to buy the photocell flame detector but they were not there.  We were back at the coach before it got dark and I had just enough time to give them a tour of the bays.  It was chilly so we went inside and gave them a tour of the interior.  We had a little wine or beer, as suited individual tastes, and just sat and visited.  All too soon I had to drive them back.

Butch and Fonda pulled in around 8 PM.  We were getting concerned about their dogs only to discover that the dogs had traveled to Yuma with them.  I chatted briefly with Butch and a little while later he brought over our turbo boost gauge.  We turned in early as we are headed to Lake Havasu City very early tomorrow morning.

 

2015/01/15 (R) Getting Our Bearings

It had cooled off in the coach by the time I went to bed late last night but I was surprised that it dropped to 58 degrees inside given that the outside temperature only fell to 48 degrees.  I was slightly cold much of the evening even though I had the electric heating pad turned up to ‘3’.  Linda is always telling me to just pull up the extra blanket at the foot of the bed but it usually has cats curled up on it so that often doesn’t really work.  Besides, she does not want it up on her side of the bed so that doesn’t really work either.  The ultimate cure was to get up, put on my sweats, turn up the thermostats, and make a pot of coffee.

I waited for an hour after breakfast to let the outside temperature warm up a bit and then got to work replacing the Aqua-Hot drive shaft bearings.  I borrowed three hose pinch clamps from Butch yesterday as I knew he and Fonda would be leaving first thing this morning.  As the name says, they are used to pinch hoses closed so nothing can flow through them.  I needed the clamps to pinch off the diesel fuel supply and return lines to the Webasto burner so I could remove it to work on it.

Hose pinch clamps.

Hose pinch clamps.

While I got started on the Webasto repair Linda gathered up a couple of loads of laundry and worked at her computer while the laundry washed and dried.  She hooked her laptop up to the TV/monitor in the bedroom and her screen returned to normal brightness.  Go figure.

The SKPs had another happy hour from 1 – 3 PM today but we did not go because I was still working on the Webasto burner.  As we were leaving yesterday we had a nice conversation with Dortha Hall about Bentsen Palm / Retama Village in Mission, Texas.  We have talked to representatives of BP/RV at several rallies and are on their e-mail marketing list.  BP/RV is a planned development with everything from RV pads to multi-bedroom homes with two-car garages and RV ports.  Online it looks like a nice place and Dortha confirmed that impression.  At least she and her husband, Mark, really like it there.

The Aqua-Hot bay with tools positioned to work.

The Aqua-Hot bay with tools positioned to work.

She and Mark have an RV pad with a coach house near the front of the park.  The coach house is 12’x20′ and is intended to be a guest house but can be lived in as it has a kitchen, bathroom, and laundry facilities in addition to more room than a typical RV interior.  They are also allowed to rent/lease their RV space when they are not there.  They can handle the rental themselves or put their lot in the rental pool and let the Village management handle it.

The service and repair manual for the Webasto DBW2010 is quite detailed and gives step-by-step instructions on how to disassemble, repair/replace, and reassemble every component in the system.  What it does not contain are the tips and tricks that experienced service technicians use when things do not work exactly as written.

By way of example, the plastic housing that covers the motor and blower assemblies is held on by four screws and is sealed with an O-ring on the end that mates with the nozzle and pump support plate.  The directions say to “… remove the four screws and pull the housing off.”  Yeah, right.  It took me an hour to figure how to get the cover off without breaking it.  And yes, that was after removing the four screws.

Cowling removed from Aqua-Hot revealing the burner and controller.

Cowling removed from Aqua-Hot revealing the burner and controller.

We knew the unit was running rich because of the visible black exhaust smoke when the burner was on.  And I knew that combustion byproducts we’re finding their way into the pump/burner compartment because there was a fine soot on lots of things in there.  Still, I was surprised by how much soot was inside the cover and inside the blower once I got it disassembled.

There were several things like this that did not just work as described, but my favorite was the one that said to disconnect the fuel lines, unplug the wiring harnesses, and remove the burner assembly.  No problem, except that the harness is hard-wired on one end to various thermostats inside the case and part of the other end disappears inside the cover (which I had not yet figured out how to remove).  I cut the four thermostat wires and later spliced in a mating pair of 4-flat trailer lighting connectors.  These connectors are keyed so as long as I wired them correctly I could not plug them in the wrong way.

Ten inch ratchet extension with 10mm socket.

Ten inch ratchet extension with 10mm socket.

I got all of these kinds of things figured out in the end but it took a lot of extra time.  Two runs to the tool store, one for an air nozzle and one for the trailer connectors, took more time away from actually working on the unit.  But I got the burner disassembled to where I could access the main shaft bearings and removed all of the old components.  As long as the burner was disassembled I cleaned everything I could using compressed air and Simple Green degreaser with paper towels and Q-tips, being careful not to degrease bearings, gears, or other parts that needed to remain lubricated.

The bearing kit had about 12 parts but the diagram and directions made it very clear exactly how they were to be installed and they went together as described without difficulty.  When we spoke to Lloyd DeGerald yesterday he shared a tip (trick) with us to “… tighten the nut until the (thing) just starts to bind and then back it off 1/4 turn.”  That sounded great yesterday but was a lot less clear today.  I eventually figured out that the nut he was talking about was the Nylok that was the last piece to go on the drive shaft as part of the bearing kit.  I also figured out that the “thing” that “just starts to bind” was probably the plastic blower and that what it binds with is the aluminum casting where the bearings are installed.

The burner assembly removed from the combustion chamber showing the fuel nozzle and spark ignition electrodes.

The burner assembly removed from the combustion chamber showing the fuel nozzle and spark ignition electrodes.

The instructions tell you to tighten the Nylok using a feeler gauge to set the gap between the blower and the case casting and that the gap is critical.  A little too tight and the blower will rub on the casting, dramatically reducing its rotational speed.  Too loose and the blower will leak.  In both cases it will not supply sufficient air to the combustion chamber, resulting in a rich mixture.  (Worn bearings will also slow the rotational speed of the blower and anything that slows the rotational speed of the main shaft also slows the fuel pump RPM and pressure.)  Lloyd apparently does not bother with the feeler gauge and has learned that backing the nut off 1/4 turn sets the correct gap.  Yeah, but only if you have the experience to know what “just starts to bind” feels like.  I set the gap visually, tightening the Nylok as much as I was comfortable, backing it off slightly, and then spinning the blower while observing the gap all the way around the casting.  The blower spun freely so I presumed it was not binding, and the gap seemed fairly small.

With the bearings replaced I reassembled the blower housing, mounted the motor, positioned the wiring harness, put some Syl-glide on the new O-ring and slipped it over everything and positioned it in its groove.  I applied a little more Syl-glide all the way around the O-ring and on the four mounting ribs that support the cover.  I then routed the two wires for the ignition coil out through the small hole towards the rear of the cover and tried to slide it into place.  Yeah, right.

 

The four mounting ribs are serrated (for added grip) and the cover gets tighter the farther it is pushed on.  It had to be oriented correctly so the ignition coil ended up on top and aligned so the holes for the retaining screws ended up directly over the threaded holes in the ribs.  I got the cover oriented and aligned quite well but when it got to the O-ring I was shy by 1/2 screw hole and could not get it all the way on.  I tried setting the burner on the end of the cover and using a 1/2″ socket extension to tap on the nozzle/pump casting.  I also tried holding the unit and tapping on the end of the plastic housing with a rubber mallet.  Patience and persistence paid off and eventually I got the holes aligned and the retaining screws in, but it did not just “slip on.”

The disconnects for the two wires to the flame detector photocell.

The disconnects for the two wires to the flame detector photocell.

I changed the nozzle, slipped a new photocell mounting plate over it, and then positioned the spark electrode gapping tool on the nozzle.  I positioned the electrodes and tightened the retaining bracket.  I routed the ignition wires, connected the two supply wires for the ignition coil, and mounted the coil on the outside of the cover.  We were “on the base leg turning final” (airplane talk) when the first real glitch of the day occurred.  I went to re-install the photocell and discovered that it only had one wire but the harness had two connectors.  I checked my disassembly notes and it definitely had two wires when I removed it.  Bummer, but not to worry; I will just use the photocell from the other (spare, not currently functioning) burner.

I pulled the other burner out of its storage bucket and removed the mounting screw that holds the photocell in place behind an opening in the mounting plate.  When I tried to unplug the two banana connectors I discovered that the technician who worked on the burner in Elkhart, Indiana last June had used butt crimp connectors.  The photocell was essentially hard-wired.  Double bummer.  I called Lloyd to see if he had any photocells and what they cost.  He was fairly certain that he had some as they do occasionally fail and have to be replaced.  He thought the list price was $190 and did not suggest that I could buy it for less than that.  Linda got on her iPad and checked Sure Marine Service, where I just got the bearing kit and other Webasto repair parts, and they had them in stock for $124.  Big difference, but then Lloyd had them in Quartzsite and SMS would probably take seven days to get them to me.

The burner assembly with the outer housing partially off (or on).

The burner assembly with the outer housing partially off (or on).

It was about this time that Butch and Fonda got back from a day at the Quartzsite Rock and Mineral Club.  Butch ended up working on the photocell problem, cutting the wires on the spare and improvising two banana plugs from spade connectors.  While he did that I spliced one of the 4-flat connectors to the thermostat wires and the mating connector to the burner harness using butt crimp connectors and being careful to match the wire colors on both ends.  I installed the photocell and was finally ready to re-install the burner into the combustion chamber.

By this point the sun had set, it was getting dark and chilly, and Linda, Fonda, and Barb were getting ready to leave to go to a free concert put on by Barry (of Barry’s Breads) and Chas (who works with/for Barry).  I had planned to go to the concert put I was close enough to finishing the job that I wanted to stay on task and get it done.  I got out my twin-tube fluorescent work light and set it up above the Aqua-Hot.

The burner assembly with the outer housing removed.

The burner assembly with the outer housing removed.  The motor is to the left and the fuel nozzle is to the right.

I positioned the burner assembly vertically, cover down and nozzle up, and attached the supply and return fuel lines.  Keeping the wiring harnesses out of the way I carefully positioned the burner assembly on the combustion chamber, swung the retaining bolts into position, and gently tightened the retaining nuts by hand.  When I was absolutely sure I had the burner assembly seated correctly I gently tightened the retaining nuts by hand without a ratchet.  I plugged the two 4-flat connectors together, re-installed the Webasto controller, plugged the two controller harnesses into the controller, and connected the red wire to the burner assembly (which I had cut back in October and spliced in mating spade lug connectors).  It was ready to fire it up, or so I thought.

I turned on the burner switch by the dashboard and the motor immediately spun up, the blower whirred, and about 15 seconds later we heard the sweet roar of combustion.  The unit had a higher pitch, indicating that it was rotating faster than it was previously.  I grabbed a flashlight and went around to the other side of the bus to check the exhaust.  I was not able to see any visible exhaust, but I will check again tomorrow.  The exhaust had a different, more robust, sound like a jet engine and more like what I was used too before we started having problems with the system.

The burner assembly wiring harness.

The burner assembly wiring harness.

I had noticed a small coolant leak earlier when working in the Aqua-Hot bay.  The leak was from the rubber hose coming out of the top of the check valve on top of the middle zone pump.  Bummer, and duly noted, but nothing to be done about it tonight.  I put the three-sided stainless steel cover back on the end of the Aqua-Hot as it helps reduce the audible noise level up in the house.  As I was re-installing the cover I noticed that there was some liquid around the pressure/filler cap for the “boiler” heat exchanger.

Closer inspection revealed that the clear flexible tubing which connects the filler neck to the expansion reservoir was broken right at the fitting on the filler neck.  Bummer, but at least that explained why the level of the fluid in the expansion tank had not dropped all day even though the electric heating element got turned off right after I started working this morning.  I had noticed the persistently high fluid level hours earlier, and noted that it did not seem right, but I did not take the time to investigate it then.  I removed the spring clamp that was retaining a small stub of hose on the filler neck fitting and removed it, re-routed the hose, slid the spring clamp over it, pushed the end of the hose over the barbed fitting, and slid the spring clamp over it.

The work was done, except for cleaning up the work site and putting tools and parts away, and the Aqua-Hot appeared to be running correctly for the first time in a long time.  I gathered up my tools, returning each one to its correct tool box, put the tool boxes away, and stowed the work light and air hose in their designated places.  I closed and locked the bays and there was no trace of the long day’s work that had just concluded.  I washed my hands as best I could and Butch and I headed over to Crazy Jerry’s for dinner.  I had a side order of fries and iced tea.  By our request, Donna was our waitress again.  She is delightful.

While we were at dinner I got a call from Gary Hatt.  He thought perhaps I was going to stop by his coach today, but I reminded him that I had indicated in an e-mail that I was going to rebuild my Webasto burner today, and had only finished less than an hour ago.  We will go over and meet him tomorrow.  I spent the rest of the evening writing this post and as a result did not get to work on the FMCA NEC seminar categories project, so I will have to make time for that tomorrow.  It was a long but satisfying day.

 

2015/01/8-14 (R-W) Q 2015 W2

2015/01/08 (R) Up On The Rooftop 

A panorama from the roof of our bus.  Left edge is NE, center is S, right edge is NW.

A panorama from the roof of our bus. Left edge is NE, center is S, right edge is NW.

As forecast, we woke up to cloudy skies and milder temperatures.  The clouds to the southwest looked like they might produce rain but the winds were blowing gently from the southeast so the rain would not be for us.  This was the day we’ve been waiting for, the perfect kind of weather for washing a bus.  But not first thing in the morning.  Coffee and breakfast come first while we wait for slightly warmer temperatures.

The waste water tank level sensors are not accurate but our fresh water tank sensors are OK.  The fresh water level gauge was showing less than 1/3 tank and the grey water tank gauge was showing full so it was probably time to dump and fill.  When I checked the fresh water level visually we were at 1/6th tank.  I dumped the black water tank and then the grey water tank, both of which were fairly full, and then filled the fresh water tank.  I have the city water regulated to ~50 PSI (static) which drops to ~30 PSI when the fill valve is fully opened.  At that pressure it takes about 40 minutes to fill the tank.

I last dumped the waste tanks on December 30th and added 25 gallons of (hard) fresh water.  On December 31st I added another 30 gallons of (hard) fresh water.  On January 2nd I recharged our water softener, drained about 1/6 tank (~20 gallons) of (hard) fresh water and filled the tank with 120 gallons of soft water.  I checked the hardness of the water coming out of the softener after that fill and it was 1.5 grains/gallon (25 ppm).  I checked it again after today’s fill and it was still 1.5 gpg.  Since we are keeping a log of the dumps and fills I plan to check the hardness after each fill so can regenerate the water softener before it gets depleted and we end up with really hard water in our tank and system.

Butch happened to be at the Post Office Annex today checking the P. O. Box at exactly the same moment a postal worker was about to put something in the box and then stopped because of the forwarding tag.  The “something” was our package of water hardness test strips from Bristol, Indiana and the worker was kind enough to give it to Butch to give to us.  He also learned that they still have P. O. Boxes available so he went to the main post office to find out more about that.  He came back with a form to fill out and it had room for all of our names so the six of us are going to share the box and the cost, which is $56 for six months, or just under $20 per couple.

While the fresh water tank was filling I started getting ready to clean the roof by getting out our Little Giant step/extension ladder and various cleaning supplies.  The dump and fill was done by 11 AM and it was warm enough by then to start working.  Swim trunks, a white T-shirt, and Kean sandals was the uniform of the day.  I carried the hose sprayer up the ladder with me and then lowered it down to use as a hook and lift wash water bucket, scrub brush, and other paraphernalia up to the roof.

It turned out to be sunnier than I had hoped but I worked for about four hours, not including a lunch break, and scrubbed the entire roof.  I used McGuire’s red automotive soap and rinsed thoroughly.  I had already washed the roof once using Dawn dish soap (a big ‘no no’, apparently) and a long-handle soft brush.  That washing had removed surface dirt and revealed the full extent of the dark “spotting” that gave the entire roof a mottled appearance.  The roof looked a lot better after I scrubbed it but a lot of the spotting remained.

We are anxious to clean the sides of the bus but there is no point doing that until we are done with the roof.  We want the roof “like new” clean so dirt doesn’t run off it onto the sides, but we also want it clean because we are seriously considering having Discount Solar (here in Quartzsite) install solar panels and a charge controller and do all the wiring.  As long as we had the hose, brushes, and soap out we decided to wash the car.  It was even filthier than the bus, if that’s possible, and it was nice to finally have it clean.

After cleaning up our equipment I got cleaned up and then sat and visited with Butch for a while.  Linda came over and announced that she wanted me to take her to dinner.  Butch and Fonda decided to go too so we went to Crazy Jerry’s, which is not to be confused with Silly Al’s.  Silly Al’s is supposedly the #1 eatery in Q, at least for pizza, but they have karaoke every night starting at 7 PM.  Thank you, no.  Crazy Jerry’s also has pizza and we tried the vegetarian, hold the cheese.  Very thin crust (the way we like it) and lots of topping.  A couple of side salads and a side order of French fries.  FWIW, we did not eat the entire pizza and brought home the leftovers.

Linda split a pair of Scrabble games with her brother, the first one he has won in quite some time.  She had an e-mail reply from Mara.  She is camped about 70 miles south of Q and is headed here in the near future and is going to camp with the WINs (Wandering Individuals Network).  I checked e-mail, updated my BCM article spreadsheet with two more story ideas, played a few games, and worked on this post before turning in for the night.  We will have been here a month as of Sunday.

The Hi Jolly Daze Parade.  Quartzsite, AZ

The Hi Jolly Daze Parade. Quartzsite, AZ

2015/01/09 (F) The P. O. Box

I left the ladder setup yesterday so I could check the roof again this morning and determine what additional cleaning measures, if any, I might want to take.  I also wanted to get back up on the roof and measure the space we have available for solar panels.  I was expecting two packages via UPS; one from B&H Photo (Manfrotto nodal panoramic tripod head) and one from Sure Marine Service (Webasto repair parts).  I had a nice view of the mountains surrounding Quartzsite from the roof of our bus and wanted to shoot some panoramas with the new head when it arrived.

Butch, Fonda, Jim, Barb, Linda, and I all went to the U. S. Post Office in Quartzsite this morning to sign up for our very own P. O. Box which means we finally have a way to receive USPS mail while we are here.  Just in time, too, as Q has really filled up in the past week and there is more to come.  I have an FMCA national education committee meeting on Monday and need to write a few items for a member survey and review other materials.  Gary (from BCM) is also due to arrive on Monday, and both Curtis (from RVillage) and Mara Culp (HFH build acquaintance) may be headed this way as well.  I believe Chris Dunphy and Cherie Ve Ard of Technomadia are already in the area.  The big RV tent is up and those vendors are arriving and setting up.

Once we were done at the post office I went to Discount Solar to discuss a possible installation on our coach.  The Kyocera panels are 26.5″ W x 59.0″ L.  They are “12 V panels” but are rated at 140 Watts putting out 7.9 Amps.  They cost $350 each.  Those numbers compute to an output voltage of 17.5 VDC and $2.50/W.  (If a 140 Watt panel was operating at 13.8 Volts it would produce just over 10 Amps.)  Because we have a 24V battery system we would need to install the panels in series-connected pairs.  The preferred installation for the rectangular panels is to have the long dimension lined up fore-n-aft to either side of the centerline of the roof.  Tilt mounts are available ($45/panel) but we would probably not install them due to the difficulty of getting onto our roof to use them.

“12 volt” batteries typically charge at around 13.8 to 14.1 volts.  Our “24V” system charges at 27.6 to 28.2 volts and a series-connected pair of panels produces 7.9 A at 35V (full sun) for 276.5 volt-amps, which is essentially “watts.”  Two pairs would produce 15.8 A (553 V-A), and three pairs would produce 23.7 A (829.5 V-A).  The higher voltage output of the panels is reduced and regulated by a solar charge controller before getting to the batteries.  Discount Solar carries Blue Sky and Trimetric maximum power point tracking (MPPT) controllers and the Blue Sky Solar Boost 50 would handle three series-connected pairs for about $550.  The MPPT controllers are DC-to-DC converters so they convert the excess voltage into additional current.  With full sun this six panel system could supply up to 30 A of charging current at the proper voltage, which is why we would need an MPPT controller that can handle more than 30 A of charging current.  We would also want room for expansion or replacement with higher wattage panels if they were available at some point in the future.  One of the nice things about the solar system is that it would always be on and would “play nice” with our other charging systems. Another nice feature is that they are silent when operating.  Ahhhh.

Because of the size of our house battery bank (400 A-Hr at 24 VDC) and the fact that we have a residential refrigerator, auxiliary air-compressor, and other AC loads, we would need/want at least six panels.  (I have not included the four Group 31 wet cell batteries that are used to start the engine and power the chassis as part of the solar system.)  If the batteries were discharged 50% (200A-Hr) it appears that it would take just under seven hours to bring them back to full charge based on the 30A charging current.  In actuality it would take longer in a boondocking situation as the sky is not always clear, the sun is rarely directly overhead (perpendicular to the panels), there would be devices using some of the energy, and the amount of current the batteries can accept falls off as they get closer to being fully charged.

Installation is $90/hour plus mounts ($15/panel), wire, connecting blocks, and other parts, and would take 4 – 5 hours to complete.  The owner assured me they would have it in and out in one day so we could be back in our parking spot before dark.  The last three weeks of January are the busiest time of year for Discount Solar and since we are plugged-in to shorepower we do not need the solar system right away.  If we have it installed in early February we would have a month to make sure it works and resolve any problems.  The system would cost about $3,300 installed.  We have at least a month to think about it.

When I returned to our coach Linda was out walking.  When she got back I went up on the roof with a tape measure to see if/how the solar panels might fit.  With a four-n-aft orientation we could put two towards the front outside edges, one just aft of the kitchen skylights on the driver side, and one aft of the hall skylight on the passenger side.  We could put two more somewhere in the rear.  The options for the rear appeared to be inline (almost touching) on the driver side starting just behind the bathroom skylight or putting one there and the other one sideways across the back just ahead of the dropped portion of the roof and aft of the bedroom vent fan.  Placing the panels in these locations would leave the center of the roof open so I could climb up on the driver side front and walk all the way to the back.

Barb stopped by to let us know there was a mattress in the house (park model trailer) if we wanted to try it out.  It had been in their rig for about two years until they removed it yesterday and replaced it with a thicker one they got from Connie.   It is a regular queen size mattress about 6″ thick, so not one of the oversized behemoths that have become the norm.  They also had a 1.5″ thick memory foam pad to go on top of it.  We took a look at it and decided to give it a try.

We have been using our old Select Comfort adjustable air mattress in the RV since summer 2013.  One side (mine) has a slow leak so I have to adjust it every other night.  I could live with that indefinitely but what we really dislike about it, and have for a long time, is that we tend to roll into the center or off the edge.  It also takes up valuable storage space under the bed for the pump, has wires and hoses to deal with, and has a controller for each side.  We were definitely ready to try something else so we stripped the bed, disconnected the two air hoses, and carried the mattress out of the bus.  It was surprisingly heavy and bulky for an air mattress and lacking in self-supporting structure, but that also made it easier to bend it around the front passenger seat, down the entry stairs, and out the door.  We stored it in the bedroom of the house trailer pending a final decision about the replacement mattress.

We carried the new mattress in, which was definitely easier than getting the old one out, and got it positioned on the plywood bed platform.  We put the memory foam pad on top and put our mattress topper over that which added another inch.  We put our electric heating pad on and then the sheets and the blanket.  We will try it out for a while and if we like it we will see if the Salvation Army wants the old one.  If not, it may end up at the Quartzsite dump as we really do not have any way to get it home or a reason to do so.  We will leave the pump, hoses, and controllers under the bed until we decide on its final disposition.

The suspension on the bus had settled slightly in the driver side rear since we parked and leveled it almost a month ago.  It would not have been enough to require an adjustment except that our bed sits crosswise with the head on that side and I find that sleeping with my head even slightly downhill is not comfortable.  Rather than start up the main engine we got the Dewalt portable air-compressor out of the car and connected it into the brake system fill port in the passenger side engine bay.  I had to connect the chassis batteries and turn the ignition on (without starting the engine) in order to activate the leveling controls, but that allowed me to raise that corner up and get the coach level side-to-side.  At some point we will re-position the bus, but not until I have completed some work on the turbo boost sensor mounting plate and hose and the level low system components for the front end.

We put the air-compressor back in its special storage divider in the car and decided to rearrange a few things so we could put the rear seat down.  Starting next week we will need to be able to carry a passenger.  We thought about heading down to the market area but remembered that we were expecting UPS deliveries.  I started working on two more articles for BCM instead while Linda went for a walk.  It was warmer today and so it was warmer in the coach and I ended up taking a nap.

Our UPS and FedEx shipments usually arrive late in the afternoon or early evening but had not shown up by dinner time.  I had planned to disassemble the Aqua-Hot burner and replace the bearings, nozzle, and perhaps a few other small parts tomorrow but it now appears that will have to wait until Tuesday, assuming our shipments arrive on Monday.  I will likely need to clean the unit as well, given that it has been running so rich, and that may include pulling the combustion chamber.

Linda made two cold salads for dinner; chickpea and wild rice Waldorf.  Both are favorites of ours, especially in warmer weather.  We had some Barry’s Basic Bread with our meal and another glass of Lamb’s Valley organic sweet white wine was a most agreeable accompaniment.

Yup, that's a real, live camel in the Hi Jolly Daze Parade. These animals are strongly linked to the 19th century history of Quartzsite, AZ.

Yup, that’s a real, live camel in the Hi Jolly Daze Parade. These animals are strongly linked to the 19th century history of Quartzsite, AZ.

2015/01/10 (S) Hi Jolly Daze Parade

Today was the annual Hi Jolly Daze Parade.  As first time winter visitors to Quartzsite there was no way we were going to miss this event.  I was up at 7 AM to make coffee and we were done with breakfast by 8 AM.  We checked the parade route online and figured we would go to the Quartzsite Improvement Association grounds as the parade ended in the parking lot there.  It was scheduled to start at 10 AM so we snagged Fonda about 9:40 and headed that way in the car.

When we got to Central Avenue and Main Street the police had Main Street closed so we could not turn left to get to the QIA.  I stayed on Central down to Kuehn Street and took it east over to the exit 19 overpass and back to Main Street.  On the way we saw Lloyd DeGerald’s motorhome parked along Kuehn with a big banner advertising his Aqua-Hot technician services.  I am hopeful that I will be able to repair both of our burners myself but if not Lloyd is the guy I would call, so I was glad to see that he is in town.  But back to the parade.

The police had Main Street closed on that end too.  We knew the parade started at Plymouth Avenue and Quail Trail so we headed in that direction and parked at the Quartzsite Library.  We were surprised that no one else was parked there as it was a short walk from there to the start of the parade route which turned out to be an excellent spot from which to view the parade.  What we realized after we got there was that the west side of Plymouth Avenue was lined with cars from the starting point all the way to Main Street.  I suspect that Main Street was similarly lined with people, most likely in cars, but we were not able to observe that directly.

We had a few drops of rain leading up to the start of the parade.  There were plenty of grey clouds around, but the sun was also shining and the parade did not get rained out.  In fact, a full 160 degree rainbow formed behind the parade and lingered until most of the participants had passed us.  The highlight of the parade was a live camel.

“Hi Jolly” was the Americanized pronunciation given to Hadji Ali, who came here in 1856 as part of an experiment by the U. S. Army in the use of camels.  There are conflicting accounts of his exact place of origin but it seems clear that he came to the U. S. from the Middle East as one of the first, and the lead, camel driver.  For a more complete account check the entry in Wikipedia for “Hi Jolly.”

The experiment did not work out as the Army’s horses, mules, and burrows were apparently terrified of the giant animals and would panic in their presence, but Hadji Ali remained in the U. S. and eventually ended up in Quartzsite where he died in 1902 and was buried in the local cemetery.  We got the impression that he was something of a living legend in his own time and in the 1930’s the governor of Arizona had a monument erected at Hi Jolly’s gravesite.  It is a small pyramid made of local stone with a metal plaque on one side and a metal profile of a camel on top.  According to Wikipedia the monument is allegedly the most visited location in Q.

When the parade was over we returned to our coaches.  Linda went for a walk and I wrote another article for Bus Conversion Magazine.  This was another short one, less than two pages and only 11 photos, on the installation of the new speedometer in our bus.  When Linda returned from her walk she made a broccoli-potato mash.  In addition to the broccoli and the potato it had soy milk, vegan butter, salt, and pepper.  The potatoes were not completely mashed and the dish was both tasty and had a nice mouth feel.

After lunch Linda made a shopping list.  We headed to the Kuehn Street market area and stopped at Barry’s Breads but our timing was bad, again.  We drove south on Central and found the entrance to the parking lot for “the big tent.”  This is where the RV vendors will be in another week or so, but nothing was open yet, so we went over to the Tyson Wells area west of Central Avenue and found some miscellaneous items and a pair of Crocs for me.  For all the shoes I brought I did not have something that was easy on, easy off.  We are parked on gravel and I needed something I could slip on quickly and easily to step outside the coach.

Most of Linda’s list was groceries so we drove to Blythe, California to do our shopping.  To vary our trip and see some new sights we stayed on Kuehn Street heading west past the edge of town where it became West Dome Rock Road.  The road parallels I-10 on the south side for a long way through BLM land and eventually ends at an interchange with the Interstate.  We saw lots of RVs, and a few tents, spread out on either side of the road, but not nearly as many as we thought we would.  There are probably a lot more RVs here than we realize, but the desert is a vast place.

When we got to Blythe we took a few minutes to drive through town and get a feel for the place.  It had a more developed, modern, and prosperous business district than Quartzsite and more houses, as opposed to park model trailers and mobile homes. The houses were not fancy but they were in decent condition.  Schools and municipal buildings were also nice, and there is nothing in Q to compare to the two supermarkets and name brand stores like Auto Zone, NAPA Auto Parts, and K-Mart.  We started at Albertson’s and got most of the items on our list.  We then went across the street to Smart and Final Express and picked up a few things there.  Once again we were not able to find the Silk brand Soy Coffee Creamer, which has us wondering if we last bought it at Wal-Mart in Parker.

When we got back to camp I unloaded the car and Linda put the food away.  I wandered over to say high to Butch and Fonda and play with their dogs, Daffy and Rascal, for a few minutes.  I then went over to say high to Jim and Barb’s dog, Roho, which brought them out of their motorhome and got me invited in.  Linda eventually wandered over looking for me and the four of us had a nice chat.  It was the first time since they got here that I had been inside their rig, a Country Coach Intrigue, and it was very nice.  It has one slide on the front half of the driver’s side, and there is no doubt that it really opens up the interior.  Before we bought our bus we were looking seriously at Country Coach motorhomes (but not their Prevost bus conversions) and the Tiffin Allegro Bus (which is a purpose-built motorhome, not a true bus).  But in the end we were bitten by bus fever and we still have it.

We stopped to visit briefly with Butch and Fonda on the way back to our rig.  Butch has always had an interest in metal detecting and has developed an interest in rocks since arriving in Quartzsite.  If you had the slightest inclination towards rocks, gems, and minerals then being in Quartzsite during the winter would likely push you over the edge into a full-blown hobbyist.  Sometime in the last couple of days Butch bought a used contraption that consists of a table saw, two grinding wheels with a water delivery system, and an electric motor.  He and Fonda acquired a bucket of rocks, including a piece of petrified wood, and they are setting up an area outside their bus to work on their new hobby.

For dinner Linda made pan-grilled tofu slices with caramelized onions and bar-b-cue sauce, but with a twist.  Instead of hamburger buns or slices of bread she heated 12″ tortillas and made wraps.  Of the various ways she has served this simple, but delicious, dish this was definitely my favorite so far.  As much as I like a nice, fresh bun the tortilla wrap kept all of the ingredients contained so that I got onion and BBQ sauce with each bite, and they did not end up all over my plate and all over me.

As we do most evenings, we relaxed, played games, worked puzzles, read, and wrote. We are always a bit surprised at how tired we are after dinner, but we are up and about during the day and the fresh air and sunshine just seem to wear us out.

The roof of our bus after cleaning looking SW as viewed from the driver side front corner.  Quartzsite, AZ.

The roof of our bus after cleaning looking SW as viewed from the driver side front corner. Quartzsite, AZ.

2015/01/11 (N) Swimsuit In January

I turned the lights off last night at 11 AM and was up at 7 AM this morning which seems to have become my current routine.  Because of the new (to us) mattress I was able to get up without waking Linda up.  I turned up the heat in the front of the coach but not the back as Linda does not sleep well in a warm room.  I started getting the coffee ready but did not grind the beans because of the noise it makes.  I worked at my computer on organizational tasks such as copying files to the NAS, copying blog posts from e-mail to Word, and backing up website and photo files to the NAS.

Linda got up around 8:30 AM and set the microwave convection oven to preheat in convection only mode.  When it was ready she heated up the leftover cinnamon raisin rolls she took out of the freezer yesterday and put in the refrigerator.  While the rolls were heating I finished making the coffee.  Although they are not gigantic, one of these rolls would probably be plenty of calories for breakfast.  Two rolls, however, made for a very satisfying meal.  Still, they take about four hours to make fresh and about 25 minutes to reheat.  She makes a batch of eight, so if we each had one for breakfast her efforts would cover four meals instead of two.

Today was another bus cleaning day, but first Linda went for her morning walk while I continued to organize photo files on our network attached storage device.  It was forecast to be a cloudy but mild day and by late morning the clouds had moved in, so when Linda got back we got busy.  Even with the cloud cover it was warm enough that I was able to wear my swimsuit and a T-shirt, my preferred outfit for working with water.  We bought some CLR Mold & Mildew remover yesterday and I tried using it on the lower rear roof.  It did not appear to have any effect so I abandoned any further roof cleaning and we got started on the sides.

The upper sides of our bus are not easy to clean.  Even with our Little Giant extension/step ladder set up as a step ladder at its maximum height I cannot quite reach the top curve of the side walls.  Knowing that was the case I cleaned all the way around the edge of the roof, where it meets the side walls and the front and rear caps, from the roof.  Once I was done with that we took the Little Giant extension/step ladder and converted it from extension configuration to step ladder configuration.

We worked all afternoon until after 5 PM and managed to clean the front and the passenger side.  We wanted to get the passenger side done because it faces south and we wanted to do this on a cloudy day.  Working a section at a time we used McGuire’s red automotive soap, scrubbed with an automotive microfiber sponge, rinsed thoroughly (with Q’s incredibly hard water), and dried with microfiber clothes.  We could not get all of the hard water stains off but it was a lot cleaner, and looked a lot better, than when we started.

The weather forecast for tonight was for heavy rain sometime between 9 and 11 PM with accumulations of up to 1/2″.  For a place that typically only gets 4″ of rain a year that would be a lot of rain for one storm.  We put our lawn chairs, mats, and other outdoor items in the carport for the night just to be safe.  Shortly after 6 PM we had our first sprinkles.

For dinner we had chickpea salad and wild rice vegan Waldorf salad with strawberries and peach slices and some Barry’s Basic Bread with a small glass of Franzia Fruity Red Sangria.  I responded to some e-mails after dinner and deferred work on possible survey questions for the FMCA national education committee until tomorrow.

Linda makes her selections at the Quartzsite Farmers Market.

Linda makes her selections at the Quartzsite Farmers Market.

2015/01/12 (M) E-mail Groups

It has stayed warm enough the last few nights that I have not needed the electric heating pad and we have been able to leave windows slightly open.  We both sleep better in a cool room with fresh air.  The deluge of rain that was forecast for last night did not develop but it was still mostly cloudy when we got up this morning.  After breakfast, coffee, morning puzzles, and checking in with the world we got on with our chores.

My major tasks for the day revolved around preparations for, and participation in, a 2 PM FMCA National Education Committee work session.  While I worked on that stuff Linda went for her morning walk, made an appointment to get her hair cut tomorrow, and made garlic naan (Indian bread) from scratch.  When the phone meeting was over I transferred photographs from my camera to my computer and then joined Linda over at Butch and Fonda’s coach for a late afternoon visit.

Jim L. showed up while we were chatting, read the electric sub-meters, and figured out our bills.  Linda had to write four separate checks to cover our site fee, electricity usage, laundry, and the rental for the apartment, which Jim gave to Barb to cover the cleaning before and after Marilyn’s upcoming visit.  Butch placed an order with PartDeal.com for a VDO speedometer so I had him order a VDO Cockpit Series 0-30 PSI Boost Gauge for me.  The UPS truck also showed up and had the two packages I have been waiting for.  All too soon the sun dropped below the western mountains and it turned chilly so we retreated to our coach.

Linda made curried red lentils for dinner and served it along with the garlic naan bread she made earlier in the day.  Warmed and energized by this fabulous meal I launched into my second major task of the day; the creation of an e-mail group in Microsoft Outlook for our FMCA Great Lakes Converted Coaches chapter.  I got the latest roster from Linda, who is the treasurer, and was able to rearrange it, save it as a CSV file, import it into Outlook, and map it to the standard contact fields.  It was then easy to create a Contact Group and select all of my new entries to go in it.  Once I got the group set up I wrote an e-mail to the members, my first since being elected President of the chapter back in October.  I was up much later than usual, but I got it done.

Escapees RV Club happy hour SE of Q in one of the BLM STVAs.

Escapees RV Club happy hour SE of Q in one of the BLM STVAs.

2015/01/13 (T) Geekiness

Today was a day for Geeks and geekiness.  Chris and Jim Guld, AKA The Geeks On Tour, arrived in Quartzsite yesterday and are staying at an RV Park not far from our encampment.  Butch knew they were headed this way and after he and I were unable to get EchoLink working on his computer yesterday he contacted Jim to see if he would be willing to stop by and take a look.  Jim is a former network administrator and knows a lot more about stuff like networking, protocols, ports, port forwarding, and proxy servers than we do.  But before he came over Linda and I had breakfast after which she walked over to the beauty parlor and got her hair cut while I worked on a seminar classification task for the FMCA National Education a Committee.

Jim G. arrived on his bicycle around 10:30 AM and stayed for a couple of hours.  He re-checked the things Butch and I had already tried and tried some things we had not, but we could not get Butch’s system to let the EchoLink program connect successfully to the EchoLink servers.  For the record, Butch’s system consists of a Windows Vista laptop that connects to the Internet one of two ways:  1) through a Verizon MiFi or,  2) through a WiFiRanger Go2 into a WiFiRanger Mobile into a DSL WiFi gateway of unknown make and model.  Jim also tried connecting through the WiFi hotspot on his Android-based smartphone.  Same result.  Mixed in with work we had a great visit with Jim and hope to meet up with he and Chris at least once while they are in Q.

After Jim left Linda and I were headed in to have a bite of lunch when an unfamiliar car pulled into the lot.  Barb was by the road and pointed the driver in our direction.  We quickly realized that it was Mara.  She had called Linda first but Linda did not hear the phone ring so it was a wonderful surprise when she showed up.  We visited for a couple of hours while we snacked on hummus, pretzels, and red grapes.

Mara is camped on BLM land north of town with the WINs (Wandering Individuals Network) and has been traveling off and on with groups of WINs since we last saw her in Gillette, Wyoming in July 2013.  Since that time she has also gotten a different motorhome, a 35′ Fleetwood Bounder, with which she is very pleased.  She invited us to join a group of WINs on Sunday to go to The Desert Bar and I think we will.  Linda checked it out online and it is a completely solar-powered, off-the-grid, place.  You have to take dirt roads or ATVs to get there.

It appears that things are finally going to get busy for us.  Gary, from BCM, is supposed to arrive tomorrow and Curtis, from RVillage, is supposed to arrive on Saturday.  Forrest and Mary are already here as are Chris and Cherie of Technomadia.  The Escapees RV Club has happy hours scheduled tomorrow and Thursday at one of the BLM areas east of town.  Blythe, California has a bluegrass festival starting Friday and running through Sunday.  We will probably go on Friday as there is also a Balloon Festival in Lake Havasu the same three days which we will probably attend on Saturday.  Somewhere in there I need to repair our Aqua-Hot and I am thinking that it will probably be Thursday.  The “Big Tent” Sports, Vacation, and RV Show starts on Saturday (17th) and runs through the Sunday the 25th.  Marilyn arrives on the Thursday the 22nd and leaves on the Thursday the 29th.  The last full week of January really is the peak of the winter season in Q.

After Mara left I used my macro lens to photograph the front and back of both of our amateur radio operator licenses.  I post-processed the images to improve the readability and reduce the file size.  Once I had the photos ready I downloaded and installed the EchoLink software on my Asus laptop.  I went through the initial configuration for my license and tried the server connection test.  As with Butch’s installation, two of the four UDP port tests failed.  I ignored that for the moment and went ahead with the validation procedure for my ham license.

Anyone can download and install the EchoLink software but only licensed hams can legally use it.  That is because it can, and often does, connect a computer to a ham radio repeater that is “on the air” and only licensed hams are allowed to transmit on those frequencies.  Validation was a multi-step process.  When first starting EchoLink I had to supply my FCC callsign, name, and (base station) location.  That information was transmitted to a database on the EchoLink servers but the EchoLink organization needed to validate that I was actually the person to whom that callsign was issued.  Through a separate process on the EchoLink.org website I had to upload JPEG image files of the front and back of my wallet license.  Once someone examined the images and made sure the call was active in the FCC database they “flipped the switch” on the server side and I was finally able to connect to stations if I wanted to.  I repeated the process later for Linda’s license.

While I was waiting to have my license validated I started trying to figure out how to get the EchoLink program to connect successfully to the EchoLink servers.  When the communications test with the servers runs it identifies the IP address assigned to the computer.  I went into the WiFiRanger Mobile and enabled UDB port forwarding for ports 5198 and 5199.  The TCP test was successful so I did not set up TCP port forwarding for port 5200.  Enabling port forwarding, however, was necessary but not sufficient.

What I ended up doing was switching the operating mode on the ESET Smart Security program from “Automatic” to “Interactive.”  With that change, the program would pop up a message box every time another program had outbound or inbound traffic through a port and ask if I wanted to allow the communication and optionally create a rule for it.  Several of those messages had to do with EchoLink and after clicking “Allow” to all of them the server/router tests were finally all successful and the program was fully functional except for the license validation.

Sometime in the late afternoon another motorhome showed up and backed in to the property with Jim L.’s help.  It was Larry and Sandy, who normally stay at Jim L.’s RV Park near the QIA.  Jim’s park is full so he put them over here in the spot by the laundry where Jack and Maria parked for a couple of nights a week or so ago.

We had leftover red lentil potato curry (thick soup) for dinner with the rest of the garlic naan and a glass of sangria and it was very good, again.  I finished up my FMCA education committee task and e-mailed it off.  I received an e-mail that my ham license had been validated so we played with the EchoLink program and User’s Guide for a while but did not try to connect to any stations.

While I was working on all of this I noticed that nine updates were pending for Windows 8.1 and there were four optional ones as well.  Installing updates is often an iterative process and so it was again this evening.  One of the optional updates was a roll up from November 2014 that was 723.9 MB.  That’s a big update.  I started downloading it at 23:52 MST and then went to bed.  My hope was that fewer people would be trying to use the local DSL system to get online at that hour and the update might actually load and install successfully.  But I would have to wait until tomorrow morning to find out.

L-to-R: Travis & Melanie Carr from the Escapees RV Club and Cherie Ve Ard & Chris Dunphy of Technomadia.

L-to-R: Travis & Melanie Carr from the Escapees RV Club and Cherie Ve Ard & Chris Dunphy of Technomadia.

2015/01/14 (W) SKP Happy Hour

As soon as I got up this morning I checked the huge Windows 8.1 optional rollup update that I started last night.  It had completed successfully except for restarting the computer, so that’s what I did.  While the update finished installing I made coffee and got the juice ready and Linda prepared our cereal.

Once the update finished I checked e-mail and websites.  Linda made white bean hummus to take to the SKP Happy Hour later today.  She then remembered that the Farmers Market at Desert Gardens was this morning from 8 AM to noon so we drove over there.  There was only one stand selling produce, but they were from Blythe, California only (20 miles away) so the produce was very local and very fresh.  Linda bought an assortment of veggies and a grapefruit.

We had parked at the south end of the western parking area and from there we could see a road going back towards “Q” Mountain and a well-defined trail going up the western side.  We drove back there and determined that we could park there when we decide to climb the mountain and do some panoramic photography.

We drove to Barry’s Breads and bought a loaf of Barry’s Basic Bread and then continued east on Kuehn Street to confirm Lloyd DeGerald’s location.  We took Riggles Avenue back over I-10 to Main Street and headed back towards Central Avenue, stopping at the Road Runner Market for a few things.  When we got back Jim and Barb were aggressively trimming the Palo Verde trees in the cactus garden.

As we often do most mornings, Linda went for a walk and I worked at my computer, installing three more optional updates and taking care of some e-mail.  We gathered up chairs, food, and beverages at 12:45 PM and drove over to the SKP Happy Hour on East Dome Rock Road.  There was already quite a crowd when we arrived and everyone was in a good mood.  And why not.  The sun was shining, the air temperature was pleasant, there were tables arrayed with food, people had beverages of their choice, Johnny Cockrum was performing, and lots of folks were meeting old and new friends.  We had a thoroughly pleasant time, but we always do when we are with groups of Escapees.

On the way back to camp we spotted Lloyd DeGerald and his wife out walking their dog and stopped briefly to chat about our Aqua-Hot.  We then stopped at the trailer for the Two Crazy Ladies and ordered engraved hang tags with our call signs and a sign asking emergency responders to rescue our cats.

When we got back to camp Linda went for another (short) walk and I sat down to work at my computer.  We lost our Internet connection while we were away and the DSL gateway would not re-associate with our WiFiRanger Mobile so I had Barb open the house and I power cycled the gateway.  I was then able reestablish the connection to our WFR-M.  That is the second time this has happened since we arrived here but so far has not caused us any real difficulty.

Butch has been having problems with their Progressive Industries EMS cutting off their shorepower due to high voltage.  We noticed during dinner that our PI-EMS was also showing a PE-3 (previous error – high voltage).  I do not know if our Magnum inverter switches on “instantly” when outside power is lost or if there is a delay but I am now wondering if we lost our Internet connection due to loss of power to the WiFi Ranger Mobile after which it was not able to reconnect with the gateway.  The next time this happens I may try powering the WFR-M off for 60 seconds and restarting it.  It’s also possible that the high voltage is wreaking havoc on the DSL gateway.

After dinner I sent a TXT message to Gary at BCM inquiring if he had arrived in Q as planned.  He called back and said they had just cleared Indio, California.  I suggested they find someplace to stop and rest and finish the trip tomorrow morning in the daylight.  They are headed to the Quartzsite Market Place dry camp area for the Eagles International bus gathering.  I spent the rest of the evening working on five different articles for Bus Conversion Magazine before finally turning in around midnight.

 

2015/01/01-07 (R-W) Q 2015 W1

2015/01/01 (R) Hola 2015

The salt restraining tube for the water filter housing.  The slotted end (R) goes down and the o-rings sit in the other end.

The salt restraining tube for the water filter housing. The slotted end (R) goes down and the o-rings sit in the other end.

Having stayed up later than usual last night to see the old year out and welcome the new year in we were in no hurry to get up this morning, especially given that the temperature outside was in the upper 20s.  But Linda said she would make her yummy vegan cinnamon rolls for breakfast so I felt obligated to get up and eat them.  Besides, it’s my job to make the coffee.  The rolls took quite a while to make and we ended up having them for brunch, but they were worth the wait.

I spent much of the morning looking for new games in the iStore.  I downloaded a dozen free ones and then started trying them in turn.  Most of them immediately tried to sell me a full version or ran a full-screen advertisement each time I tried to start a new round of play.  If they did that I immediately deleted the app.  I cannot imagine what makes a game developer think someone with tolerate that more than once.  At some point I realized that my AppleID was still associated with an old e-mail address so I initiated the process of changing it.  The process was not as seamless as I thought it could/would/should be, but I eventually got it sorted out.  Or as they say or Doc Martin, “sorted.”  As it turned out my credit card information was also out of date so I updated that as well.  Obviously I do not make iStore purchases very often.

I needed to regenerate our portable water softener even though it was 48 degrees F outside in the shade.  It was, however, comfortable enough in the sun to be able to work.  I started at noon cutting the plastic drain pipe that I bought at Herb’s Hardware the other day to a length of 10″ which is the length of a standard water filter.  I cut eight 3/8″ slots in the bottom end of the tube and got an O-ring from Butch to fit in the swaged upper end.  The purpose of the tube is to hold salt so that incoming water is required to pass through it to get to the softener but the salt crystals cannot actually wash into the softener.

Linda helped me transfer the contents of a 40 pound bag of solar salt to several two-gallon zip lock bags.  I then put a small quantity of salt in a one-quart zip lock bag and gently smashed it with a two-pound sledgehammer, although as I write that it seems to be something of an oxymoron.  I inserted the tube into the removable filter housing, slotted side down, and poured the salt around the outside of the tube.  I smashed a second bag of salt and added it to the housing.  I put the housing back on the filter head and slowly ran water through the softener for almost two hours.  I got a water hardness test strip from Butch and tested the output of the softener.  It was still showing 7 grains of hardness, exactly the same as two days ago.  It appeared that the regeneration process had not had any effect.  Bummer.

I discussed the situation with Butch and he suggested I back flush the softener.  To do that I needed a hose with female hose fittings on each end.  This is the kind of hose used to hook up a washing machine but neither one of us had one with us.  Butch, however, had a female-female adapter which allowed me to connect a male hose end to a male fitting on the outlet of the water softener.  (Backflushing literally means running water through the softener in the reverse direction to flush out any debris that may after gotten in through the normal inlet.)

The salt retaining tube in the filter housing with salt around the bottom outside and the o-ring visible at the top.

The salt retaining tube in the filter housing with salt around the bottom outside and the o-ring visible at the top.

After backflushing the softener I tried regenerating it again.  This time I used a 26 ounces of fine grain non-iodized table salt.  With my homemade diverter tube still in place I added the salt around the outside and screwed the housing back on.  I let the salt sit in the housing for 20 minutes to start to make a brine and then ran water through the softener until I got a very salty taste at the output.  I then shut the outlet valve and let it sit for 20 minutes.  When the time elapsed I ran water through the softener for another 15 seconds, checked it for saltiness, and shut the outlet valve.  At the end of another 20 minutes I ran water through it at a very slow rate for 20 minutes and then checked it again for salty taste.  It was still slightly salty and as it was getting close to sunset I decided to let it sit overnight.  I will finish flushing it tomorrow and check the hardness again.

While I was fussing with our water softener Butch recharged theirs in about 30 minutes.  When he tested the water at the end it indicated zero (0) grains of hardness; completely softened.  Their softener is different from ours and the regeneration procedure is very straightforward and apparently works.  For now I need to figure out a guaranteed procedure for regenerating ours, but long-term I need to figure out some other arrangement of just get a different softener.

The arrangement I am considering would be in conjunction with redoing the water bay. With a different arrangement of tanks I could create space in the bay for the softener, multiple filter housings, and associated plumbing.  I could set up an arrangement that would divert the incoming water (after the first/sediment filter) through a clear filter housing into which I could put the salt.  That clear housing/head would be permanently modified to force water through the salt and allow me to see when the salt was gone.  It would also eliminate the need to remove and reinstall the filter the way I have to now.  Alternatively I could put a tank between the filter housing and the softener (instead of the clear housing) and use it as a brine tank.  If the tank was big enough to hold a 40 pound bag of solar salt it would work just like a home softening system.  Water would sit in the tank with the salt for days so that the brine was ready to use when it was time to regenerate the softener.  I could even rig up a separate pump just for pumping the brine into the softener.  I’m going to give this a lot of thought before I start changing things around, but last winter in Florida and this winter in Quartzsite have made it very clear that hard water is a problem and we need a very effective and efficient way to deal with it.

While I worked with the water softener Linda began preparing a Tex-Mex bean soup for dinner and then went for a long walk.  She finished making the soup when she got back while I took a short nap.  It cooled off quickly as the sun set and nothing is quite as satisfying on a cool evening as hearty, hot soup.  It also had a bit of red pepper heat which was a nice bonus.  It was really good soup.

I had a few e-mails from Gary at BCM and a nice follow-up e-mail from Kathy at the Michigan Assessment Consortium.  She attached a copy of their holiday letter so I attached a copy of ours in reply.  I spent a little time browsing websites for OTA TV antennas and turbo boost gauges and finally went to bed without resolving what to do about either thing.  I have a lot of nights that end like that.

2015/01/02 (F) Crazy Days In Q

Contact is established with our cat, Jasper.

Contact is established with our cat, Jasper.

The “show” at Desert Gardens officially opened yesterday and runs through the end of February, so Quartzsite is quickly be transformed into a crazy place.  We were chatting with Butch, Fonda, Jim, and Barb after breakfast and Barb reminded us that starting now driving and parking “downtown”, and especially along Kuehn Street south of I-10, during the day will be difficult to impossible.  She offered to drive us down in the golf cart and come pick us up if we did not want to walk.  She also told us that many vendors will hold purchases for pickup at the end of the day.  We exchanged cell phone numbers, which we had not yet done since they arrived.  She suggested that if we wanted to eat out we should go early or right before closing as we might not be able to get seated/served otherwise.  There’s no doubt that we have lucked out on our arrangements this winter, and the situation just keeps getting better.

Linda was browsing on her iPad and discovered an all vegan grocery store in Rancho Cucamonga, California; the largest all-vegan grocery store in the world.  I looked up Rancho Cucamonga on Google Maps and it is located about half way between Los Angeles and San Bernardino.  Based on the speeds I like to drive (often just below the speed limit or 68 MPH, whichever is less) it looks like a four hour drive one-way from Q.  That’s obviously too far for a regular grocery run, but we might make a day trip in that direction sometime this winter and find the store while we are over there.

One of the things I did after climbing in bed last night was spend a little time looking at the Sure Marine Service website.  SMS is a major supplier of repair parts for Webasto diesel-fired hydronic systems headquartered in Seattle, Washington.  After studying their parts diagrams I became unclear (and concerned) as to whether the burner we removed from Butch’s old unit was a DBW2010 or a DBW2020.  They are very similar but not identical.  I am almost certain that our original burner is a DBW2010, but our AHU-xxx Aqua-Hot is so old that the model number is no longer referenced on the website and model specific documentation, like a service manual, is not available for download.

The reason I was looking at the parts diagrams was to identify the bearing kit for the blower as I wanted to order two of them today.  What I could tell from the website was that the 2020 is a higher BTU output burner and so one of the differences is that the 2010 uses a 0.35 GPH nozzle while the 2020 uses a 0.60 GPH nozzle.  That alone might account for why we seem to have poor combustion, although even money is still on bad bearings.  The unresolved issues and the inability to investigate at midnight did not make for a good night’s sleep.

I have the Aqua-Hot service/repair manual for the unit I bought from Butch, both on paper and on my iPad, so I spent some time this morning looking at the iPad version.  I could not tell if they used the same bearing parts so I did not order anything today and won’t until I can determine model numbers.  I asked Butch if he knew which burner was in the Aqua-Hot I bought from him, but he did not.  The service manual shows a Webasto label that identifies the burner model, but does not show where the label is located.  More investigation was needed.

After I got dressed I e-mailed Bill Gerrie (RetiredBusNut) in Ontario, Canada with questions about gauges and sending units for our bus engine and transmission.  I then started dealing with the water softener.  Linda returned from her walk and started preparing lunch, so I emptied the filter housing of the little bit of salt that was still in the bottom, rinsed it clean, re-installed the filter, and let it run for 20 minutes to fully flush out any residual salt water.

Linda made a warm garbanzo bean and kale salad for lunch with lemon juice and garlic.  It was the first time she had tried this recipe and we both agreed it was a keeper. After lunch I tested the hardness of the water coming out of the softener and it registered on the test strip between zero (completely soft) and 1.5 (definitely soft) so I dumped the remaining (hard) water in the fresh water tank and refilled it with 120 gallons of nice, soft water.  After the tank was full I retested the water coming out of the softener and got the same reading as before.  Finally, some good news on the water softener front.

With water softening taken care of (for now) I did an online search for a panoramic camera tripod head.  I really like shooting panoramas and the Microsoft Image Composite Editor (MS-ICE) does a remarkable job stitching images together.  Most of my panoramas have been handheld, which makes the performance of MS-ICE all the more impressive.  I have shot a few panoramas using a tripod but without a nodal point (spherical) pan head, so that is what I was searching for online.  B&H Photo had a Manfrotto on sale for $280, marked down from $600, but their order desk was closing for the day and I did not want to be rushed making this decision so I did not order it.  They will reopen tomorrow, so I will think about it overnight and do some more research.

I got our old Webasto burner out of the front bay and found the label.  It is, indeed, a DBW2010, specifically a DBW2010.75 with a 0.35 GPH nozzle rated at 45,000 BTU.  Linda recorded the details, including the serial number, and then helped me rewrap it in bubble wrap so I could put back in its storage pail.

Linda then went to Parker, Arizona with Butch and Fonda to check out the Safeway grocery store and look for some things at Walmart.  The Parker Safeway was supposed to carry Daiya vegan cheese products but they were nowhere to be found.  It appears that our closest source will be Whole Foods.  There are five of them in the greater Phoenix area but that is a two hour drive one way.

While the three amigos were gone I removed the cover from the Aqua-Hot in our coach and found its label.  Much to my relief it is also a Webasto DBW2010.75, 45,000 BTU.  It should also have a 0.35 GPH nozzle, and probably does, but I did not pull the burner out to check.  I noticed some soot on the final fuel filter inside the housing and in other places so that gave me something new to be concerned about.  I was pondering the situation when Jim and Barb and Roho came over to visit and we had a good long chat.  When they went back to their motorhome I put the cover back on the Aqua-Hot and put all of my tools away.

My plan for tomorrow is to turn the Aqua-Hot off, let it cool down, and pull the burner to check the nozzle.  It’s possible, though not likely, that I do not have the burner seated quite right and there’s a chance, though very small, that reinstalling it will fix, or least improve the performance.  My money (literally) is still on the blower bearings.  Hopefully it does not also need a new motor as everything on a Webasto is more expensive than seems reasonable. It’s another fine example of precision German engineering and manufacturing.

Even though I have quite a few e-mail addresses that I use to segregate electronic correspondence into manageable categories my inboxes still end up flooded with e-mails.  Very few of them are spam—we have good spam filtering on all of the accounts—but some of the highest volume inbound traffic is notifications of things like failed login attempts on WordPress websites.  Those e-mails do not get replies and often do not require any specific action on my part, but they sometimes obscure the presence of other e-mails that do require my attention.

Microsoft Outlook is able to deal with incoming (and outgoing) e-mails based on user-defined “rules” but I had never played with that feature until today.  I used the online help system to read about the whys and wherefores of e-mail rules and then tried creating some.  Once I understood what I was trying to accomplish it was mostly point and click to get it done, with a little typing thrown in.  What I ended up doing was creating sender/subject subfolders under the inbox of certain accounts and then creating a rule for each subfolder that directs incoming e-mails matching the criteria to the correct folder.  By keeping the sub folders under the inbox folder it will be clear to me that these are e-mails that I have received but not yet dealt with.

For dinner Linda made a cooked shredded Brussels’ Sprouts dish with tomatoes, dried cranberries, and pistachios and served it alongside the leftover Mexican rice with a glass of sangria.  Ole!  We agreed that both of these dishes were keepers and went well with the fruity wine.  The rest of the evening was quiet.  Linda read and played her online games while I finished up working on this post.  I finally went to bed and started reading the service and repair manuals for the Aqua-Hot system and the Webasto burner.  According to the long-term weather forecast tonight should be our last night with an overnight low temperature below freezing.

 

A few of the vendors at Desert Gardens, Quartzsite, AZ.

A few of the vendors at Desert Gardens, Quartzsite, AZ.

2015/01/03 (S) Hammer Stahl

I got up at 6:30 AM today.  I had been awake for a while before that and had some things I needed/wanted to do on my computer.  These were quiet tasks that I could do in the front of the coach, with the heat turned up, without disturbing Linda.

I always check my e-mail first.  There was a group message from Hillary at RVillage to all of the Ambassadors regarding a new feature they will be rolling out soon and seeking our assistance.  I mentioned this to Linda when she got up and we watched the two YouTube videos.  We did not have time today but will work on it tomorrow in advance of a 5 PM (4 PM PST) web meeting.

My first project today was updating the spreadsheet I maintain for our FMCA Freethinkers Chapter, which I started working on last night.  The chapter treasurer maintains our checking account but as the secretary I maintain the records including the roster and who has paid their dues for what years.  Because I have all of those details I also generate the quarterly and annual financial statements.  I entered the information for dues payments that had been received between November 1 and December 31.  I then added the five worksheets for 2015 (four quarters and year), which tie together and link back to the 2014 statement, and updated the cumulative financial statement.

Linda got up so I put my work aside to make coffee while she made breakfast.  We had a few bananas that were ripe so she made green smoothies for breakfast.  We happen to like kale but if we didn’t, green smoothies would be an excellent way to get our daily dose along with several other healthy ingredients.

We talked about visiting the market area today and decided to go later when it was a bit warmer.  The temperature a 9AM was still only 40 degrees F so Linda bundled up and went for her morning walk while I continued to work on my spreadsheet.

Once I finished the spreadsheet I worked outside for a bit.  I removed the cover from the burner end of the Aqua-Hot while it was running to check for an exhaust leak (sight, smell, touch) but I could not detect one.  When the cycle finished I turned the burner off.  My plan was to let the unit cool off and then remove the burner to check the nozzle size and do a general inspection of the combustion chamber and visible parts, but that did not happen today.

What I did instead was return to my computer and start putting Webasto repair parts in my shopping cart on the Sure Marine Service website.  The bearings on the installed burner are definitely whining and need to be replaced.  They are supposed to be replaced regularly anyway, so I put two sets in the cart.  It is very likely that they are causing the motor to run slow which means insufficient combustion air, and possibly lower fuel pressure, leading to the dark smoky exhaust.  I also put a fuel solenoid valve in the cart.  There is a good chance that the valve and/or the solenoid are not working on the other burner.  There’s also a chance that the ignition coil has failed, but the solenoid valve costs 1/2 as much as the coil, so I’m hoping it’s the valve.  I got the order submitted with UPS ground shipping and used PayPal to make the payment.

Once I completed the SMS order I loaded the B&H Photo app onto my iPad and spent quite a bit of time going between their website and the Sony online store trying to figure out if I should order a panoramic tripod head and/or new camera, possibly with a lens and flash unit.  Sony has the Alpha 99 FF body marked down from $2,800 to $1,900 with the vertical grip and an extra battery thrown into the deal, an additional $500+ value.  They will also bundle in the SAM 28-75mm f/2.8 lens for $400.  The lens by itself is normally $900, so that’s another $500 savings.

So for $2,500 I could get $4,200 worth of Sony’s top-of-the-line “flagship” DSLR (DSLT, actually) equipment, except for one thing; it was all on back order with an ESTIMATED ship date of February 4, 2015.  That’s my birthday, so if it actually shipped on that date it would be quite the birthday present, but if it was delayed very much there would be the very real possibility of it arriving at our location in Q after we had left.  Not good.

So what about B&H Photo?  It turns out that they (claim to) have all of these pieces in stock and they are selling the body with the added pieces for the same price as Sony, but they are not offering the lens at the bundled price.  That was the deal breaker that saved me spending a lot of money today.  Besides, I have been waiting a long time for Sony to officially announce and the ship the new (rumored) flagship alpha a99-II with its 36MP FF 35mm sensor and long list of awesome features.  To decide now to by prior generation technology it would have to be a very attractive deal, much better than what I was seeing online.

I ended up ordering a Manfrotto Nodal Point Pro panoramic tripod mount from B&H.  It should be here by the end of the week.  When it arrives I think we will hike up to the top of “Q Mountain” and try to capture the true essence of Quartzsite in the winter, which is RVs from horizon to horizon.

We headed down to the market area on Kuehn Street with Butch and Fonda and walked around for a couple of hours in the Tyson Wells Show grounds north of Kuehn Street and west of Central Avenue (US-95).  This particular market area had really filled up with vendors in the last few days.  Linda bought a nice white apron and really nice Hammer Stahl 5.5″ Santoku knife.  She checked online when we got back and she paid about 55% of the MSRP on the HS website.  She bought it from Cutlery by LeClaire, which also has a website, and has it on sale for $20 more than the price on the HS website, marked down $20 from their “regular” price.  The point is, she got it for what appears to be a good price of $59 and it came in a nice box with a ceramic sharpener thrown into the deal.

We drove farther west on Kuehn Street and pulled into the Desert Gardens show grounds.  It was getting near sunset, so we did not stay long, but Linda and I walked enough of it to get a feeling for the place.  It was a “rougher” setup than Tyson Wells and many of the booths were selling large, rough rocks and gemstones.  The vendors also had a lot more equipment set up and were using it to process materials.  We’ll be back, probably more than once, and earlier in the day so we can spend more time.

When we got back to our motorcoaches Fonda came over and worked with Linda for a little while on their business records.  We then had a nice salad and some of the spicy bean and pasta soup (that Linda made the other day) with crackers and sangria.  I spent more time after dinner researching stuff on my iPad and working on this post.

We appear to be in one of the few places in the country that is not getting clobbered by bad weather. The temperature is not even supposed to drop below freezing overnight. It will still be cool tomorrow, however, and we did make specific plans before going to bed.

 

A view of "Q" Mountain from the Desert Gardens Show area.

A view of “Q” Mountain from the Desert Gardens Show area.

2015/01/04 (N) Our Village

We had vegan pancakes for breakfast which prompted me to suggest that Linda invent some recipes, even if they are interesting and successful variations on existing ones, and feed them to our grand-daughter.  Linda could put them on our website using the WP Ultimate Recipe plug-in and, if they met with her approval, name they after “Bitty” (youngest grand-daughter’s latest nickname, although I think I will always prefer “Schmoo”).  Perhaps Pancakes Madeline; Sautéed greens a la Madeline; Pasta Madeline; or Madeline’s vegan mac and cheese.  Being retired gives me a lot of time to think.

Joe’s brother, Jim L., finally returned from Nevada today and was able to get the park model trailer unlocked.  Barb has been wanting to get in and clean it since she and Jim (different Jim) arrived.  Barb is a keep busy kind of gal.  She is responsible for maintaining the apartment and laundry room while she is here and told Connie she would also do some deep cleaning on their house trailer, so it’s been bugging her that she could not get in to do it.  As for my part, all I did was lock the door on the trailer the way Connie asked me to.  Barb and Jim (husband) had lots of keys but could not get any of them to work.

 

Today was shower day.  This is always more of a production than we would like because we keep the cats’ litter tray in the shower.  Most of the time that works really well—it is out of the way and contains any mess they might make—but it is inconvenient when we want to use the shower for its intended purpose.  Besides pulling the tray out into the hall by the bathroom door we have to clean up any stray litter in the shower to make sure it does not end up in the gray water waste tank.  Litter tray or not we still have to spray the shower walls when we are done, squeegee off the glass door, let everything dry, and then reassemble it as a giant cat litter box.  But it works and it’s one of the compromises we willingly make to live with our cats in so few square feet.

 

Once I was dressed I went outside to chat with Jim L. (Joe’s brother) and we discussed the possibility of upgrading the electrical service at our site to “50 Amp” (240VAC, 50A, 4-wire, the equivalent of a 120VAC, 100A residential service).  It’s not an issue for us right now as the cool weather has us burning diesel fuel to make space heat, but once the weather turns warm we may need our air-conditioners.  We have three but can only run one on a “30A” service and still have enough power to run other things.  A 30A service is just what it says; 30A of current at 120VAC.  A “50A” RV service is slightly more than three times that amount of power.

 

The electrical hookups here are very interesting.  Perhaps all RV park power pedestals work the same way, but I have never looked inside one so I don’t know.  The meter is at the top and the area below it has a top-hinged cover.  Under the cover are three panels about 3″ wide and 15″ tall.  The panels have an outlet towards the bottom and a circuit breaker near the midpoint.  Behind the panels are busses for the hot, neutral and ground with male blade connectors.  The panels have female blade connectors that engage their male counterparts when the panel is slipped and then hinged into place.  It is secured with a single screw.  If Jim L. can find a 50A panel all we will have to do is unscrew and remove the 30A panel and plug in the new one, once we verify that 240 VAC (L1& L2) are present in the box and wired to the distribution busses.

 

Instead of her usual morning walk Linda setup her laptop on the dinette table and worked on accounting and tax issues for Butch and Fonda.  I set my laptop there as well to work on the roster for our FMCA Freethinkers Chapter and Jasper got in between us, so we had a nice, cozy computing session.  When I placed my order with B&H Photo yesterday I checked a box to receive shipping status information via TXT message.  I got one this morning letting me know that my package had shipped from NYC.  Cool.

 

With accounting chores done for now Linda prepared vegan hot dogs with mustard, onion, and relish for lunch.  She then went for a long walk while I stayed at the coach and worked with a new feature on the RVillage website.  I was posting a lot of suggestions to the topic thread on the Ambassador forum and got a phone call from Curtis, the founder/CEO of RVillage.   We had a long chat and I was still on the phone with him when Linda got back.  I worked with the website some more and at 5:00 PM we connected to an Ambassador meeting using GoToMeeting on my computer.  This is a very exciting new feature and I think RVillagers and RV-related businesses are really going to like it once they know about it and see how it works.

 

Linda made mock (vegan) stroganoff for dinner.  She normally uses Basmati but the only rice she had enough of was Texmati so she used that.  Although I did not care for the texture of the Texmati in this dish (a bit crunchy), the taste was still very good.  This dish requires real cooking, which means it makes a real mess.  By the time everything was cleaned up and put away it was 8 PM and we were both tired.  I continued to research engine and transmission gauges while Linda read and played word games.  I also revisited the SonyAlphaRumors website but there was absolutely NO new information on the a99-II.  I went to bed wondering if this camera will ever actually exist.  Based on the comments I see online I am not the only one wondering if this camera will ever be a reality.

One of the hundreds of vendors at the Tyson Wells market area in Q.

One of the hundreds of vendors at the Tyson Wells market area in Q.

 

2015/01/05 (M) VSWR 1.0

Yesterday we finished up the coffees we have been using since we left Michigan at the end of November so this morning I had to open new bags and transfer the contents from their vacuum sealed bags to our metal storage canisters.  I had Teeko’s roast Ethiopian Yirgacheffe regular and decaffeinated separately, so I opened 1/2 pound bags of each.  I also opened a 1/2 pound bag of our special Sweet Seattle Dreams, which is 1/2 Sweet Dreams (decaf) and 1/2 Seattle Blend (regular).  I then made a pot of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe 1/2-n-1/2 while Linda prepared our granola with fresh bananas and fresh blueberries.

 

Linda went for her morning walk while I continued to do online research regarding the enigma known as the Sony a99-II DSLT camera and the supposedly discontinued, but apparently still very much available, Sony alpha a99.  If I did not already have a nice assortment of compatible Minolta A-mount lenses and flash equipment I think I would stop wasting my time with Sony cameras.  But I do, and so I continue to wait and be frustrated along with thousands of other “enthusiast” (sub-professional) photographers.  Because Sony builds the image stabilization (anti-shake) feature into the alpha bodies instead of the A-mount lenses the feature is available even with older Minolta lenses and the new lenses are slightly less complicated and less expensive than the Nikon and Canon lenses, which have the image stabilization built into each lens.  I think this was one of Sony’s best innovations.

 

I also continued to look at automotive gauges and sending units and decided to call Bill Gerrie (in Ontario, Canada) to follow up on his reply to an e-mail I sent a few days ago.  We had a great chat and he was able to clarify some things and add quite a bit of specificity to his written reply.  As a result I have a pretty good idea of what I am looking for; now it’s just a matter of finding it and deciding to place the order.

 

I was starting to work at my computer when Linda returned from her walk.  She eventually fixed a couple of vegan hot dogs wrapped up in tortillas with mustard, onions, and relish.   As I was finishing my meal I got a call from Gary Hatt at BCM.  He recently acquired an Eagle bus conversion and had some questions about the air-conditioners and the Aqua-Hot.  He plans to be in Quartzsite next to week and we are looking forward to finally meeting in person since I have been writing articles for the magazine for almost two years.

 

Linda has been having a problem with the brightness (or lack thereof) of the touch screen on her 19 month old Windows 8.1 Samsung laptop.  It will go very dim for no apparent reason and cannot be adjusted.  There was a driver update available for the Intel HD Graphics processor so we downloaded it, installed it, and re-started her computer.  The screen was now bright, which was more useful than dim, but still not adjustable.  That could be a coincidence or a fix, we will have to wait and see.  Even though it was working (for now) I drove to the local Family Dollar and bought an HDMI cable and some lightly carbonated water.  (The water had nothing to do with Linda’s laptop computer display, we were just low on sparkling water.)  The cable will allow us to connect her computer to one of our two flat panel LCD (LED) TV/monitors if needed.  (We did that after dinner and it worked, mirroring the built-in display to the monitor and setting the resolution to match the monitor’s 1900x1080p native mode.  But it also caused the built-in monitor to dim, although not as much as before.  When we turned off the monitor and unplugged it the built-in display did not return to full brightness.)

 

Mid-afternoon I saw Butch working on his Tarheel screwdriver antenna so I inquired as to what he was doing.  He had connected his MFJ VSWR meter to it through a six foot length of coax.  He had also unplugged the control harness for the tuning motor and rigged up a temporary switch to extend and retract the antenna.  He had done this because he was getting meter readings when connected through the installed coax that indicated the antenna was not resonant at any frequency or that the meter was not working correctly.  I climbed up on his ladder to have a look and saw VSWRs that were often greater than 31:1, and never fell below 10:1, with complex impedances that were rarely 50 ohms and with both resistance and reactance values that were all over the place.  Clearly something was not right.  It was not his installed coax and I was fairly certain I was not his meter, which I had used back at their house to check the VSWR on his CB and 2m ham antennas.

 

I climbed onto the roof of their bus so it would be easier to reach things and I could work sitting down.  We tried adding a ground strap as a counterpoise but it didn’t help.  Butch then grounded the strap to the chassis at the motor but that did not help either.  Our concern was that the antenna was not sufficiently bonded (grounded) to the roof but nothing we tried made any difference.  I decided to set the antenna to its shortest length (highest operating frequency), set the meter to a lower frequency, and then slowly lengthen the antenna, thereby lowering the operating frequency, while looking for some sort of response on the meter.

 

I got no change on the meter and finally realized that the antenna (via the meter) was behaving as though it was not grounded.  I noticed what looked like a thick washer between the SO-239 antenna connector and the base mounting plate of the antenna.  The mounting plate is the ground reference for the antenna and is connected to the base of the antenna through a coil of insulated wire (an inductor) known as a base loading coil.  The spacer was a plastic insulator that was, indeed, preventing the case of the SO-239 antenna socket from making contact with the mounting plate.  As a result the antenna was not grounded through the coax cable shield, preventing the meter from obtaining meaningful readings.

 

We removed the antenna connector, removed the insulated spacer, reassembled the connector to the antenna, reattached the coax and meter, and took additional measurements.  This time we got excellent readings that made very good sense.  We checked the upper bound, lower bound, and the midpoint of most of the high frequency (HF) ham bands and were always able to obtain VSWRs of 1.3:1 or less, which was excellent.  Butch had been considering redoing the mounting of the large motorized fold-over base so it was a good thing we figured this out as it saved him a lot of unnecessary work.  If I can solve one problem without creating others I figure it’s a good day.  BTW:  VSWR stands for Voltage Standing Wave Ratio and 1.0 is not a beta version, it is shorthand for a ratio of one-to-one (1:1), which is the best SWR you can have.  Anything below 1.5:1 is considered excellent, below 2.0:1 good, and below 3.0:1 usable if that’s the best you can do.

 

Chayote is a fruit that is a member of the squash family and is related to other gourds such as melons and cucumbers.  Linda bought one last week when we went to Albertson’s grocery store in Blythe, California and decided to prepare it for dinner tonight.  She sliced it into long thin broad strips and sautéed them with onions, oregano, salt, and pepper.  She served it alongside the leftover mock (vegan) stroganoff with a glass of sangria.  Our wine friends can cringe all they want; we find the Vella and Franzia boxed wines generally agreeable and the sangrias go surprisingly well with a variety of dishes.  And it has me drinking red wine, so it’s healthy too!

 

We lost our WiFi connection this evening.  Not sure why.  The wireless gateway still shows up in the WFR list but won’t associate with the WFR.  Butch had the same problem at the same time so something obviously changed.  We will ask Barb to open the trailer tomorrow, or get Jim to do it if she is not comfortable, so we can reset the gateway.  Hopefully that will do the trick.

The sunsets in Quartzsite are amazing almost every night.  This shot was taken from our campsite in Q.

The sunsets in Quartzsite are amazing almost every night. This shot was taken from our campsite in Q.

 

2015/01/06 (T) You’ve Got Mail (Maybe)

 

Our mail situation here is interesting.  Remember that, per our Jamaican tour guide, we do not have problems, only situations, and situations are easier to deal with if I regard them as interesting rather than annoying.  With regards to receiving mail, the “situation” is as follows.  Although every structure in town has a street address—necessary for police, fire, EMS, trash collection, and other municipal services—the Quartzsite post office does not deliver mail to said locations.  They have an annex building on the northeast side of town that is nothing but P. O. boxes and all of the locals, and a lot of seasonal residents (including Joe and Connie, who own the property where we are staying) have a P. O. Box.

 

Where things get interesting is that the main post office and the street addresses are associated with one ZIP code but the P. O. boxes have a different ZIP code.  If something is coming to us via UPS or FEDEX we have to use the street address and associated ZIP code, but if it is being mailed to us USPS we have to use the P. O. Box number and associated ZIP code, or have it sent c/o General Delivery using the main ZIP code.  To confuse matters further, Joe and Connie had to return to Nevada because of Joe’s health and are having their Quartzsite mail forwarded back to their home, so we cannot have mail sent to us “care of” them as we originally planned as it just gets forwarded to Nevada.  Outbound mail does not appear to be a problem, but then why would it be?

 

The other situation that developed yesterday was that our WiFiRanger Mobile Ti disconnected from Joe and Connie’s WiFi (DSL) gateway and would not reconnect.  The WFR is telling us that the WPA password may be incorrect, but that is unlikely as we have been using it since we arrived last month, as have Butch and Fonda who also lost their connection yesterday and could not reestablish it.  The evidence suggests that the gateway needs to be reset.  Why?  Who knows?  DSL gremlins perhaps.  Or mischievous Internet fairies.  Or a problem with the local DSL service?  Or perhaps Butch keyed up his 600 Watt linear HF ham radio amplifier and blew out every wireless DSL router within a quarter mile?  Whatever the cause, once we can get Barb or (brother) Jim to open the trailer we will power cycle the gateway and see if that restores our ability to connect to it.

 

In the meantime, in order to get online last night and again this morning, we turned on our Verizon MiFi.  The Verizon signal here is strong and steady, and the data rate is much faster than the DSL/WiFi connection, but we only have a 4 GB data plan so we tend to use WiFi when available.  It is not always available, of course, especially while traveling (and especially if we are boondocking at Wally World or other such locations) and when it is available it is not always reliable or is so slow as to be useless.  This can be the situation, for instance, at larger RV rallies and even some RV parks.

 

So we logged into our Verizon Wireless account, looked at our current plan, and saw that for a mere $10 more per month we could increase our data plan from 4 GB to 10 GB.  The cost for exceeding your monthly data plan limit is $15/GB, so the extra $10/month was a no-brainer.  And VZW made it soooo easy to change our plan (once we were logged in); just click the data plan we want, review changes to our account, and click “Apply Changes.”  Done; they have our money and we have more data allocation.  Interestingly, they upped our data allocation immediately for the current billing cycle, which is Dec 20 – Jan 19, and added the $10 to the bill we will receive for that cycle.  No pro-rating going on here, but then we can use the whole 10 GB if we want/need to.

 

Interestingly the cost to go from 10 GB to 15 GB was an additional $20/month, so the 10 GB plan seems to be a sweet spot after which you pay a premium for additional access.  On the one hand Verizon wants to sell you data bandwidth but on the other hand there is a finite amount of data they can move through their network, so if you want to use a larger chunk of their capacity it figures that it would come with premium pricing.

 

Until a few months ago Millenicom was reselling 20 GB MiFi plans (on Verizon’s network) for $70.  It was the best deal around; a sufficient amount of data for the same price we were paying Verizon for only 4 GB.  Kind of unfair, when I think about it.  Well, Verizon decided to stop selling bulk capacity to Millenicom (and other MVNAs?), took all of the accounts in-house, and Millenicom went out of business.  Not really a big surprise when you think about it.  Verizon also notified those customers (as I understand the situation) of their “options” which were not, apparently, as attractive as the deal they had with Millenicom.  Not really a big surprise when you think about it.

 

Anyway, we will see how we do with 10 GB/month while we are on the road.  We can change back to our 4GB plan when we get home, but I doubt that we will, and we can increase it to 15, 20, or even more GB per billing cycle if we need to, but that is unlikely.  We have an AT&T landline at home with DSL service that provides an “always on” Internet connection (when it works).  It has a 150 GB/month data allowance and allows us to monitor and control our whole house generator and WiFi thermostat.  We have discussed adding a security system and a personal weather station linked in to Weather Underground’s Wundermap when we get home.  I don’t think our DSL connection is fast enough, however, that we could use 150 GB in a month if we tried.

 

Linda went for her morning walk and I made a quick run to Barry’s Breads.  Barry is a really nice older gentleman who has a small bakery stand on the north side of Kuehn Street east of Central Avenue.  Just behind the stand, however, is a larger trailer in which he bakes all of his products.  Those products include breads, rolls, savory items, and sweet goods.  Most of his products use butter, cream cheese, cheddar cheese, or ranch dressing, but his Basic Bread is just that, flour, water, sugar, salt, and yeast.  I have had some difficulty figuring out what time of day to stop by but this morning he finally had loaves of bread, and some hamburger buns made from the same recipe, so I bought a loaf and a pack of four buns.

 

When I got back I started working on another article for Bus Conversion Magazine.  A little over a year ago I installed an RV-Critter Guard to seal around the shorepower cord and water hose where they enter the utility bay through the floor.  I took a few pictures during the installation and have had the article on my “future” list ever since.  By the time Linda got back from her walk I had the article mostly finished and was starting to look at the photographs.

 

She had stopped at the Salvation Army store, which was open, to use their facilities and ended up buying a grocery bag full of clothes for $1.  Not $1/item, $1 for the entire bag.  Most of the items were tagged with color codes indicating prices of one or more dollars each but they had too much inventory and needed to move some product.  They told Linda that when that happens they have their $1 bag sale.  Deal.  She called Butch and Fonda to let them know and I think they headed there before going to check the post office box and then stop at the post office if needed.

 

Linda cooked a couple of our Boca vegan mock hamburger patties and served them with fresh sliced onion, lettuce, and pickles on two of the buns I had just purchased.  Not an entirely WFPB meal, but very few of our meals are.  Still, we try to get as much plant-based whole foods as we can every day.

 

Linda went for a second walk after lunch and headed down Central Avenue towards the Kuehn Street markets.  She is so fond of her 5.5″ Hammer Stahl Santoku knife that she wanted to buy the 3.5″ paring knife if Cutlery by LeClaire had it for sale as an individual item.

 

While Linda was gone I finished working on the photos for my RV-Critter Guard article.  When she returned from her walk she had both the Hammer Stahl 3.5″ Paring Knife AND the 3.0″ Birdsbeak Paring Knife.  As we learned the other day from an Alton Brown video paring is actually a technique in which food is held in one hand and a knife in the other; no cutting board is involved.  Paring knives are generally smaller with a shorter blade and most of the weight is in the handle, allowing very fine control of the cutting edge and tip.

 

The Birdsbeak is a particularly interesting and unusual knife.  The bottom/cutting edge is slightly concave rather than convex like the classic chef knife.  The bottom edge joins the top edge in a point with a shape that resembles certain types of curved bird beaks.  In use, the knife is often held stationary and the food is pressed or turned into it, such as decorative peeling, pitting of fruit, or slicing strawberries.  Linda is often reluctant to spend money on herself so I think it’s nice that she found something she wanted and made the decision to buy it.  Like any high quality tool it will make the work it is designed to do easier and more enjoyable.

 

While I was uploading my article to our Dropbox Linda went outside to sit.  Barb wandered over and I mentioned that the DSL wireless Internet gateway had quit working.  She let me in the trailer where I found it sitting on the dining room table.  I powered it off, waited 60 seconds, and powered it back on.  All of the status lights came back on in the expected sequence and I was once again able to connect our WiFiRanger Mobile Ti to it.  We ended up standing by their Country Coach Intrigue motorhome and having a long chat.

 

Butch and Fonda were gone for most of the afternoon so we only got to chat for a little while when they returned before the sun dropped behind the southwestern mountains and the temperature dropped along with it.  Linda and I talked about going out to dinner, which we have only done once since we got here, but she remembered that we had a FedEx package scheduled for delivery today and that it might arrive as late as 8 PM.  So we had leftover soup with crackers and sangria.  This was the third and final meal we got out of this pot of soup and it was good to the last drop.  It was a packaged mix but Linda thinks she can recreate it; getting the spices right will be the tricky part.

 

After dinner I read DSLR reviews on the Digital Photography Reviews website and continued to look at gauges and sending units for the bus.  Around 8:30 PM I was having trouble staying awake but by 9 PM I had gotten my second wind and decided to write another short article for BCM.  This one was on the failure of Butch and Fonda’s main engine air-compressor on the drive down, how he dealt with it on the road, and eventually ended up installing a rebuilt one here at our campsite in Quartzsite.  I had the article written by 11 PM and decided to work on the photos tomorrow.

Sunset envelopes our coach as Linda prepares dinner.

Sunset envelopes our coach as Linda prepares dinner.

 

2015/01/07 (W) Catch 22

 

My main pair of reading glasses broke yesterday; not the lenses or the frame, but one of the nose pads.  Well, not the actual pad, but the small plate and mounting loop, specifically the mounting loop.  I was cleaning them and the whole assembly fell out.  The loop was split and had opened up.  The loop was a very small and delicate piece of ductile metal so I squeezed it back into a circle.  I removed the very tiny retaining screw, reinserted the mounting loop, and put the screw back in.  I was able to do this using only the tools available on my Leatherman.  The repair did not hold and it fell out again last night.  This time a piece of the loop broke off so the only repair will be a new mounting pad if I can find one.  There is a Wal-Mart in Parker that probably has an optical shop but I don’t know how universal this mounting system is.

 

I checked the level of the floor and counter in the kitchen last night and the coach appears to have settled slightly on the driver side.  Not a lot, but enough that I can feel it and it registers on the level.  I generally have to start the main engine and build up full air pressure in order to level the coach but I thought today would be a good day to finally pull the portable air compressor out of the car and see if the leveling system will work without the main engine running.  As it turned out that did not happen today because we ended up driving to Parker, Arizona.

 

Our destination in Parker was the Wal-Mart.  The store did not have an optical department but we found an eyeglass repair kit in the pharmacy area with a pair of screw-in pads and a pair of snap-in pads.  They also had a repair kit with a tiny screwdriver, spare screws, and other parts.  Between the two kits I was able to install a new pad in the car to replace the broken one.  That saved us a trip the optical shop in town.

 

Parker sits on the Arizona side of the Colorado River which is the boundary with California.  We decided to drive across and then take CA-62 over to US-95, follow it south along the River back down to Blythe, and then take I-10 back to Quartzsite.  Butch called while we were in Parker to let us know that there was a Farmer’s market at Desert Gardens.  It operates on Wednesdays from 8 AM to noon so we did not make it back in time but resolved to go in future weeks.

 

I worked on my “roadside repair” article for BCM while Linda went for a walk.  Jim and Barb had gone to Blythe to buy a new faucet and Jim L. stopped by and helped Jim B. install it.  They borrowed a caulk gun from us (we carry two in the bay) but had to go buy caulk.  UPS showed up with yet another package for us, after which we had a long conversation about the inadequacies (incompetence) of the U. S. Post Office in Quartzsite.  (The UPS driver told me that both UPS and FedEx have extra drivers and trucks delivering into Quartzsite during the peak season.  What a novel idea.)

 

Back to the post office.  We are waiting for a shipment of two bottles of water hardness test strips that we ordered through Amazon but were shipped via USPS by a swimming pool supply company in Elkhart, Indiana.  I gave them the P. O. Box here in Q since the post office does not deliver mail to street addresses and it appears that they will likely get returned to the sender rather than delivered to us.  The root cause of the problem (and it is a problem) is that Joe and Connie are having their mail forwarded to their home in Nevada.  If their names are not on the mail the post office won’t put it in the box, but if their names are on the mail it still does not get put in the box, it gets sent to Nevada.  So as of now the box is sitting there but cannot be used; a genuine “catch 22.”

 

Fine, we will just use General Delivery.  The problem with that (and it is a problem) is that you can only pick up the GD Mail at the Quartzsite post office between 11AM and 1 PM, and there are untold numbers of people trying to do the same thing.  That means ridiculously long lines and ridiculously long waits.  Considering that the influx of seasonal “residents” to Quartzsite has been going on for over 30 years the postal “service” has had ample time to figure out how to handle the situation.  I mean, Amazon practically runs its holiday operations with seasonal employees, many of whom are RVers.  Gee, I wonder if there are any RVers around Quartzsite this time of year.  While the post office is trying to figure out how to not deliver our mail we have two more UPS shipments scheduled to arrive on Friday.

 

Linda made a zoodle dish for dinner.  She used her SpiraLife to turn a zucchini into long thin strips which she cut into 6″ lengths and then used like spaghetti in the dish.  The other ingredients were onions, garlic, mushrooms, asparagus, and green beans.  Everything got sautéed in a pan with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper.  We had a glass of Lamb’s Valley Organic Sweet White wine and it was a lovely meal.

 

After dinner I put the finishing touches on my BCM air-compressor repair article and e-mailed it to Butch to proof-read.  The only thing worse than writing an article that makes me look stupid is writing one that makes someone else look stupid, especially a friend.

 

I had an e-mail from Gary, the publisher of BCM, letting me know that the December 2014 issue was finally available online.  I downloaded both the SD and the HD versions.  I then clipped the cover from the SD version, pasted it into MS Paint, and saved it as a JPEG file.  I opened it in Faststone Image Viewer, resized it to a thumbnail, and sharpened it.  I then edited the BCM page on our website, adding the thumbnail image, the title of my article, and a brief description.  I have a similar entry on that page for every issue in which I gave had an article, starting with the February 2013 issue. The December 2014 article was my 14th in 23 months.

The last glow of this sunset reflects off the passenger side of our motorcoach in Quartzsite, AZ.

The last glow of this sunset reflects off the passenger side of our motorcoach in Quartzsite, AZ.