Tag Archives: BBQ sliced tofu with onions

2015/08/13 (R) Sanding Success

Linda was scheduled to go into the bakery today but knew before we went to bed last night that the visit was postponed.  That was just as well; we were very tired from our long day yesterday and slept in this morning.

Before I even had a chance to make coffee I spotted wild turkeys by the road in our easternmost driveway entrance.  They walked past the east end of the house into our backyard.  They hung around by the deer block for quite a while so we had a good long look at them and I took a few pictures.  There was a big tom, a younger/smaller tom, and a half-dozen hens, one with a surprisingly small chick for this late in the season.  The turkeys eventually moved on and we got back to our normal routine.  While I made the coffee Linda made her own version of raisin, date, walnut oatmeal with some quick oats that she had in the pantry.  It was very good.

We read for a bit but I needed to finish the blog posts for the last several days and Linda needed to return some items to the Howell Library and run a couple other errands.  While working on the blog post for yesterday I realized that we had not loaded all of the pieces for the built-in sofa.  I checked the pieces we had against the drawings, which we should have done yesterday, and confirmed that we were missing the two top pieces (E) for the support boxes (HVAC plenums) and the top piece (H) for the return air plenum.  I texted Jarel and he replied quickly that he would try to take care of it in time for me to drive back down on Wednesday to pick up them up.  It’s a 12-17 hour, 550 mile day, for me and costs about $60 in gasoline, so hopefully he will have the pantry done by then as well.

Linda got word from our son via TXT message that Shawna’s father, Mick, had passed away.  He had an aggressive but non-cancerous brain tumor that did respond to two separate surgeries and was moved to hospice care about two weeks ago.  Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline are cutting their vacation short by a day to head to the Grand Rapids area but are still leaving Tuesday to fly to Denver to visit Shawna’s mother, Carol, and her husband, Cliff.  It appears that a memorial service may be in the works for the weekend of the 22nd and 23rd, in which case we will probably drive over.

My sister tried to call me today.  Linda was on the house phone quite a bit today with bakery-related business so Patty tried my cell phone but did not leave a message.  I was working in the bus at the time, did not have it with me, and Linda could not find it in time when it was ringing.  Being deaf in one ear she cannot locate where sounds are coming from.  She does a little better when she uses her BAHA, but rarely wears it around the house.  I called my sister back and left a message and she eventually called me back and we got to talk.

Our father, who is 90, had been admitted to a hospital near where he lives.  The staff said he appeared to have severe dementia, but he was fine (for his age) just a couple of weeks ago, so I suspected a stroke or some other sudden change.  Patty sent me a text latter that the CAT scan of his brain revealed two recent lesions (last few weeks), the telltale sign of two strokes.  She also said he was being transferred to Missouri Baptist Hospital, which is much closer to where she lives, for further care.

Those two pieces of news certainly put a damper on the day, and may cause an adjustment in my plans if I have to travel to St. Louis.  In the meantime there is stuff that has to get done, so even though it was warm today and I wasn’t really in the humor, I kept working in the bus, off and on.  I vacuumed up loose material, including inside the bases of cabinets, and then cleaned the wiring in the refrigerator alcove with Lysol.  I decided to make a template for the refrigerator alcove plywood base filler panels so I could cut them the right size/shape on the first try.  I then used one of the new ceramic sanding belts on the residual thin-set and mastic, and it worked!  My sense of hope was renewed that I will be able to install the new floor correctly.

By 7 PM I was feeling drained so I wrapped up my work and took a shower.  For dinner Linda made pan-grilled BBQ tofu with caramelized onions and served it open faced on a hamburger bun with a side of fresh steamed asparagus.  It was delicious.

After dinner I went to Lowe’s and The Home Depot in search of several items but only ended up buying another 36 grit sanding belt.  I needed floor leveling compound but was not prepared to choose between their limited options.  I also needed a self-centering drill bit but neither store had them.  Lowe’s and THD really are focused on the tools and materials one needs to work on a house and its surrounding property.  Things like self-centering drill bits, though useful for things like drilling holes for door hinges, are really cabinet-making tools.  As big as these stores are they can’t, and don’t, sell everything.

I talked to Butch on the drive home.  The self-centering drill bit that Jarel recommended for installing the pull-out pantry slides is a Vix and Butch suggested four places where I could buy it:  Rockler, Custom Service Hardware, McFeeley’s, and Grizzly’s.  Before ordering one I need to e-mail or text Jarel and ask him what size screw I need to mount the pull-out pantry extension slides.

Back home I thought of four other things I could have bought while I was out so I added them to my list.  I then went to my office and worked on blog posts, updated the BCM Group page on RVillage, e-mailed Gary Hatt at BCM, responded to an e-mail from Howard (PlayaDog) re: screens for sliding bus windows, and started downloading Adobe Creative Cloud 2015 updates.  Jack Conrad had responded to my earlier e-mail asking if he knew what was going on with the Arcadia rally and I sent him a reply.  By the time I dealt with all that I was ready to recline and rest.

 

2015/07/02 (R) 100,000 Radios

We were tired and did not get up until almost 8 AM.  Linda prepared a tofu scramble for breakfast, as we were almost out of her homemade granola, and served it with some cinnamon raisin toast and fresh grapefruit.  It’s the closest thing we eat to scrambled eggs and she serves it as an occasional change of pace from our standard granola breakfast.

I had my annual appointment with my dermatologist this morning at 11 AM.  I needed to pick up a cable from Scott (AC8IL) at Adams Electronics, which was on my way to the Henry Ford Health System (HFHS) clinic, so I left the house a little after 9:30 AM.  The drive was fine initially and I had a nice QSO (chat) with Steve (N8AR) on the South Lyon 2m repeater.  As I was approaching Wixom Road, however, all lanes of eastbound I-96 were stopped.  I was able to exit at Wixom Road and headed north a short distance to West Road which I took east over to Beck Road where Scotty’s business is located a little north of West Road.  I had a brief chat with Scott about the antennas on my tower before I left.

Two miles north of Scott’s shop I turned east on Maple Road (15 Mile Road).  The HFHS has many clinics around the greater Metro Detroit area and my dermatologist is located at the intersection of Maple and Farmington Roads in West Bloomfield.  That should have been an easy trip but there was construction on Maple Road that had the road down to one lane with flaggers.  There were signs advising motorists to seek other routes but I did not heed the warning.  I patiently worked my way through and arrived for my appointment about seven minutes ahead of time.  Good thing I left as early as I did.

My exam was fairly routine and Dr. Nydorf wrote out a prescription for Doxycycline.  I will try taking it (again) three times a week and see if it helps.  I headed straight for home after my appointment but took a different route.  Once I was back at the house Linda went for a walk.  While she was walking I removed the license plate from her car, took the protective (anti-theft) cover off, and cleaned everything.  When it was dry I put the new registration sticker in the corner, reassembled the cover, and installed the plate back onto the car.  I then started working with the various pieces of the new Yaesu FTM-400DR/DE mobile radio.  When she got back from her walk she heated up a couple of tofu hotdogs for lunch.  These are such simple fare but so tasty (with mustard, onions, and relish) and so appropriate for a summertime lunch.  They are also a really easy lunch to get on the table.

After lunch Linda took her car to the Howell library to get some books and children’s DVDs and then stop at the Meijer’s supermarket to pick up a few grocery items for Madeline’s visit this weekend.  While she was running errands I assembled our new Diamond X-300NA antenna.  Once it was assembled it was over 10 feet long so I stored it by mounting it to the side of the tower.  I put it up as high as I could reach from the ground to get the three counterpoise (elevated ground plane) rods above eye level.  Moving it to the top of the tower as a replacement for the Diamond X-50NA will have to wait until next week or later.  The exact timing will depend on the weather, Mike’s (W8XH) availability, and whether I have acquired appropriate standoffs by then for the X-300 antenna and/or the cellular booster omnidirectional antenna.

With the antenna taken care of (for now) I disconnected the coaxial cable for the X-50 from the radio side of the lightning arrestor and positioned it so I could pull it back into the sump pump room.  From there I fed it into the ham shack, disconnected it from the radio, and coiled it up.  I uncoiled the new 20′ LMR-400 cable with the N-male connector end positioned so I could feed it through the corner of the ceiling in the ham shack (by the ground wire) and into the sump pump room.  From there I fed it through one of the 2″ conduits into the cable entry box.  Back outside I shaped the cable (LMR-400 cable is double shielded and stiff) and connected it to the radio side of the Morgan VHF/UHF lightning arrestor and closed the lid on the box.

Back in the ham shack I attached the PL-259 connector to the SO-239 socket on the back of the Icom IC-7000 GoBox.  I could have gotten away with a 16′ cable but the 20′ length gives me more flexibility with respect to equipment placement.  I turned on the IC-7000 but did not hear anyone on either the South Lyon 2m or the Novi 70cm repeaters so I turned it off.

I disconnected Mike’s Icom IC-2820H and set it aside to make space for the new Yaesu FTM-400DR/DE dual band mobile transceiver.  I moved the new coax to the new radio, powered it up, spent a few minutes configuring some basic things, and then listened to the South Lyon and Novi repeaters.  I tried calling them but was not triggering them so I knew the PL Tone was not set correctly.  I called Mike for assistance and left him a voice message.

Linda was back by this time so she came down to see the new radio.  We then went out to the bus to make our final decisions about upholstery fabric and window shade materials.  In the end we chose the Lambright Notion Linen fabric for all four chairs and the MCD B50 material for the dark out shades.  We brought all the samples back in the house and I e-mailed our choices to Josh at Coach Supply Direct.

I had an e-mail from Scott Neader (KA9FOX) at QTH.com requesting an admin login for the SLAARC WordPress website so I set that up and e-mailed him back.  I had the new radio on and was listening to a conversation on the Novi repeater.  It had just concluded when Mike returned my call.  He walked me through how to set up the PL Tone and Squelch Tone for both of the repeaters on the FTM-400.  We were then able to verify that the radio was working on both bands.

For dinner Linda made a salad and pan-grilled tofu with caramelized onions and barbecue sauce which she served open-faced on hamburger buns.  We had watermelon for dessert, which we have been doing a lot this summer.  I did not care for watermelon as a child but it has become a favorite summertime treat.  I had dropped a small lock washer while mounting the new antenna to the tower earlier so I went to Lowe’s to get a replacement and some spares.  On the drive there I got a call from XPO Delivery Service letting me know that the new refrigerator for the bus would be delivered to Chuck’s shop in Novi tomorrow between 6 and 8 PM.

At Lowe’s I picked up some 6mm x 1.0 Nylok nuts in addition to the lock washers.  I also got some grass seed patching mix, a few more bags of decorative broken brick pieces, and a hummingbird feeder with a red reservoir so Linda can use sugar water without red food coloring.  When I got home the odometer on my car read 100000 so I took a picture of it with my phone.  I then spread the patching mix over the bare dirt I had used to fill a hole and troughs left by the installation of the natural gas line to our house last September.  The rest of the evening Linda read and I worked on completing drafts of blog posts.

 

 

2015/02/07-11 (S-W) In and Around Q

2015/02/07 (S) Bouse, AZ

We got up around 8 AM, got cleaned up, and had coffee and granola.  Linda then cut my hair, which seems to be a once every 4 to 6 weeks thing when we are traveling.  Butch and Fonda went to Yuma to meet up with Bell, Bell’s daughter, and Bell’s three grand-daughters.  Bell’s daughter was in Yuma with her Roller Derby team and the family came along.  We wanted to get out and do some more sight-seeing and decided to drive to Bouse, Arizona.

Cholla "teddy bear" cacti at Quinn's Pass on the road to Bouse, AZ.

Cholla “teddy bear” cacti at Quinn’s Pass on the road to Bouse, AZ.

Bouse is a small town located in the next valley to the east of Quartzsite, which sits in the La Paz valley.  It is on AZ-72 at the eastern end of Plomosa Road.  The western end of Plomosa Road is at AZ-95 seven miles north of the city limit of Quartzsite.  The first three miles of Plomosa Road heading east from AZ-95 runs through the BLM Plomosa Road STVA.  The road is paved its entire length and provided a fun and scenic drive out to Bouse and back.  We stopped at Quinn Pass to read the historical marker and ended up going on a short hike.  We have wanted to do this little trip ever since friends told us about it, but today provided an added incentive to finally go; the Parker 425.

The Parker 425 is an annual off-road race in the desert east of Parker, south of the Buckskin Mountains, and north of Bouse.  The course is a little over 140 miles in length and the race consists of three loops for a total of 425 miles.  It begins and ends at the Bluewater Resort and Casino in Parker.  Last year’s winner completed the race in just over seven hours.  That’s an average speed of 60 MPH, and there are plenty of curves and bumpy areas where it is not possible to go that fast, so the vehicles are really moving every place they can.

When we got to AZ-72 we crossed the highway, drove three short blocks, and made a left on Swansea.  I could see from the GPS that it was a paved road that continued in a northeasterly direction.  I had looked at a map yesterday and had a general sense that one of the spectator areas was out that way.  We did not have to drive very far before we saw Jeeps and ATVs parked on top of a big hill all facing the same direction.  We drove past the turnoff for that area and just around the hill was a large parking area full of cars and RVs.  The dirt road was closed, the Fire Department was set up there, and there was a checkpoint for the race.  I found a place to park and we got out to check out the action.

We stayed long enough to see a dozen different vehicles pass through the checkpoint and I shot photos from several different vantage points.  There are different classes of vehicles, but the ones we saw were of two types: highly modified small pickup trucks, and custom built off-road racers known as “grasshoppers” because of their long shape and the suspensions allow them to “bounce” over bumps in the road.

View looking NW from the Quinn's Pass area between Quartzsite and Bouse, AZ.

View looking NW from the Quinn’s Pass area between Quartzsite and Bouse, AZ.

The air temperature was pleasant but the sun was very hot so we drove the short distance back to Bouse, stopped at AZ-72, and quickly scoped out the town.  We spotted the Coachman Restaurant just northwest of the intersection and drove over there to have lunch.  We each had a garden salad and iced tea, and I had French fries.  We can pretty much count on lettuce and potatoes in any restaurant we visit.

Bouse was founded in 1908 as a mining camp but as a waypoint between Phoenix and Parker it now survives on tourism, agriculture, and retirees.  Measuring 10.1 square miles at 947 feet ASL with 996 residents (2010 census) the area enjoys sunny skies year-round.  We saw RVs of all types throughout town and in the dessert along Plomosa Road which is all BLM land.  There were also quite a few RVs in the Bouse Community Park.

We drove back to Quartzsite the way we came, a distance of 30 miles, because the only other ways back were via Parker (64 miles) and Phoenix (at least 250 miles).  Linda wanted to walk through the Tyson Wells market area one more time as this is the last weekend for the Craft Show.  We bought a cute hand puppet that we think grand-daughter Madeline will find very interesting.  We drove over to Barry’s Breads to get a loaf of his Barry’s Basic Bread but he was not open.  In fact, it looked like he was done for the season.  Activity really has slowed down here and he is presumably getting ready to move to his next venue.

We stopped at the Road Runner Market and bought a loaf of French bread and some red grapes.  We then drove to the Quartzsite Cemetery to take photographs of Hadji Ali’s (Hi Jolly’s) gravesite, which is marked by a small pyramid with a silhouette of a camel on top.  As long as we were there we wandered around the rest of the cemetery, which was an interesting and well-kept place.

Once we were back at the coach Linda sat outside and read while I transferred photo files from my camera to my computer and backed them up to our NAS.  I then continued selecting and processing images from yesterday’s outing to KOFA NWR Palm Canyon.  I was starting to work on the images from today when Linda cane in and started making dinner.

She decided to make “Mustard Greens and Beans” using Great Northern beans.  In addition to the usual onion and garlic, it had vinegar, a little sugar, and honey mustard.  It was very tasty and we agreed it was a keeper.  She served sautéed green beans on the side, cut up some of the French bread, and poured a couple of glasses of Franzia Refreshing White wine.  Sliced fresh strawberries and cookies for desert completed the meal.

Butch and Fonda got back from Yuma while Linda was cooking.  I gave Butch a call after dinner to discuss our TireTraker systems.  He needs to charge their monitor this evening and I asked him to check on the behavior of the LEDS on the 12/24VDC plug.

As we do most evenings, Linda read and played online word games while I worked on this post for a while and then resumed editing photos on my computer.  I checked e-mail again and had several regarding the upcoming Freethinkers gathering at the Liar Peg Leg Smith Monument boondocking area near Borrego Springs, California.  One of them posited the question of how often Friday the 13th occurs?  I did a quick online search and the answer appeared to be 1 to 3 times per year and every 12/7 or 1.714 times per year, on average.  That is 171.4 times per century or 1,714 times per millennium.  I posted that back to the e-mail reflector and went to bed.

Rocks and flora at Quinn's Pass, AZ.

Rocks and flora at Quinn’s Pass, AZ.

2015/02/08 (N) Another Meetup

I was up at 7:30 AM this morning and got the coffee made right away.  Linda did not sleep well last night but got up as soon as she smelled the coffee.  Breakfast was toast and preserves.  I was planning on putting in a long day at my computer and Linda was planning on doing laundry and some work for the bakery but our plans changed before we got started.  When I checked my e-mail I had one from Lou and Donna Rice of our FMCA Freethinkers Chapter indicating that they were at Mile Marker 2 on Plomosa Road.  We drove right past them twice yesterday on our visit to Bouse but had no idea they were there.

Plomosa Road is about seven miles north of Quartzsite on AZ-95.  We left at 10 AM and were parked next to their Jeep before 10:15.  We sat and talked for four hours before returning to our coach.  As soon as we got back I took our TireTraker monitor and charger over to Butch’s coach.  We tried our charger on his monitor and it worked fine.  We then tried his charger on our monitor and it did not work.  Between our four devices it was clearly our monitor that was defective.  I will have to call Darryl Lawrence tomorrow and see what we can figure out.

We each had a pear, some red grapes, and something to drink.  Linda gathered up laundry and I got to work editing consolidated blog posts.  In between loads she sat outside and read.

Fonda had two Poblano peppers she got at the Farmers Market on Wednesday and gave them to Linda.  Linda found a recipe for stuffed grilled poblanos.  The stuffing was white rice, scallions, black beans, tomatoes, vegan sour cream and cheddar cheese, and cumin.  It resembled Mexican rice but with a creamy/cheesy dimension.  She cooked the stuffed peppers on Butch and Fonda’s little grill and cooked the extra stuffing on our cooktop.  She served the dish with Clementine orange wedges and a glass of Franzia Refreshing White wine to make an outstanding meal.

After dinner we sat outside Butch and Fonda’s bus enjoying the cool desert night air and watching the lights of airplanes flying overhead.  It eventually cooled off enough that we returned to our coach where I continued to work on blog posts and Linda worked on the bakery accounting.  She eventually went off to bed and I uploaded survey items to the FMCA Education Committee folder in our Dropbox and sent an e-nail to the committee.  We have a committee work session tomorrow at 4 PM EST (2 PM MST).

Vehicles positioned east of Bouse, AZ to watch the Parker 435 off-road race.

Vehicles positioned east of Bouse, AZ to watch the Parker 435 off-road race.

2015/02/09 (M) A Bright Idea

Butch called around 8:20 AM to let me know that our light bulb order was at the Post Office awaiting pickup.  He and Fonda were headed to the Quartzsite Gem and Mineral Club for a day-long class on faceting, so he gave me the parcel slip so I could go pick up the package.

While we were eating breakfast it suddenly occurred to me that we should visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West while we are camped near Tucson next month.  Linda went to the website and discovered that it is in Scottsdale which is a northern Suburb of Phoenix and is closer to Quartzsite than it us to Tucson.  We selected a couple of possible dates and she went online to get tickets.  The “Behind the Scenes” tours are only done on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday.  She tried to get tickets for Monday February 16 but they only had one left.  She called but they would not sell us two tickets.  We waited way too long to think of this and painted ourselves into a corner so it may not happen on this trip to the southwest.

I drove to the Quartzsite Post Office after breakfast and retrieved the package, only my second trip to the Post Office to transact business since we arrived in Q.  The first trip was to sign up for the P. O. Box.  Linda usually takes care of the mail while she is out walking and Butch usually checks the P. O. Box, which is at a different location that is not quite as convenient a walk from our camp as the main building.  We have not used the P. O. Box very much, but it has been invaluable when we have.

I worked most of the day on some of my blog posts for December 2014.  I took a break around 12:30 for a bite of lunch and then called Daryl Lawrence and left a message regarding our TireTraker TT-400C monitor which appears to not be recharging.

The Parker 425 checkpoint east of Bouse, AZ.  This race is a BIG deal with fire, EMS, and helicopter coverage.

The Parker 425 checkpoint east of Bouse, AZ. This race is a BIG deal with fire, EMS, and helicopter coverage.

Gaye Young called around 1:30 PM to make sure I was going to participate in the FMCA Education Committee work session at 2 PM.  (Gaye is the chairperson of the committee.)  There were only two items on the agenda and I had to give the status report on both of them.  Our work sessions and meetings are conducted by telephone conference.  They usually last an hour and today was not an exception.  If committee members provide me with additional input this week regarding an education survey we are developing I will have some work to do the last two weeks of the month in addition to working on articles for Bus Conversion Magazine, completing some minor repairs on the bus, finishing the cleaning/waxing of the exterior of the bus, and cleaning/waxing the car.

I managed to upload consolidated blog posts, including some photographs, for December 5 – 8, 9 – 12, and 13 – 16, 2014.  I did not take very many photos while we were traveling but once we got settled in Q I got the camera out and started using it.

I got a call back from Jeff at TireTraker support.  I explained what the monitor was (not) doing and he agreed to mail me a new one along with a new charger.  We will return the defective one to Daryl at Escapade next month.

Linda cooked up a couple of Tofurkey brand vegan Italian sausages with sweet onions and sweet red bell peppers and served some broccoli as a side dish.  After dinner I removed my bulbs from the Bulbtown shipment and checked the quantities and prices against my spreadsheet.  I then took the remaining bulbs over to Butch.  He had ordered 10 #4003 bulbs to use in his bay fixtures and realized when he saw them that he should have ordered #4004s.  Both are 24VDC bulbs but the #4003s have a single contact base whereas #4004s have a double contact base.  I think my bay light fixtures may take #4003s.  I will check tomorrow and if so I will buy them instead of Butch.

We sat outside with the lights off enjoying a glass of wine while watching the long lingering sunset backlight the mountains to our west.  As the sunset faded we looked at the stars and watched aircraft lights moving east and west high over the desert.  It still cools off here after the sun sets but not as quickly, nor as dramatically, as it did just  a week ago.

I combined the blog posts for December 17 – 20, 2014.  I had selected and processed photos for this post earlier so it was ready to upload at 11 PM but I did not want to go through the process at that late hour.  I dealt with a couple of e-mails and then went to bed.  A short time later Jasper threw up a large quantity of food so I had to get up and deal with that.  It looked like it had some hair mixed in with it, but I don’t know if that was the root cause.

2015/02/10 (T) Deionized

We were planning on heading to the Peg Leg Monument boondocking area on Thursday, spending the night in Indio, California and visiting Joshua Tree National Park (JTNP) on Friday before driving home Friday evening.  Ken Harrison from the FMCA Freethinkers indicated that he and Linda would not make it to Peg Leg until Friday.  That prompted us to consider flipping our plans, doing JTNP on Thursday and Peg leg on Friday.  Either way we will stay in Indio as we already have reservations at a motel.

The Polaris RZR ("razer") was one of the most popular 4-wheel ATVs in and around Q.

The Polaris RZR (“razer”) was one of the most popular 4-wheel ATVs in and around Q.

We had another stay-at-home day relaxing while getting things done.  Linda was going to drive to Blythe for groceries, but decided to go on Sunday as we will be away from camp all of Thursday and Friday and much of Saturday.  She is going to see if the Farmers Market is still operating tomorrow morning.  If not she will stop by the Road Runner Market.

As has been our pattern recently Linda went for a long walk (5 miles) while I continued to work on blog posts.  We had a light lunch when she returned.  I then called Teeko’s Coffee and Tea in Howell, Michigan and ordered six pounds of roasted coffee beans to be shipped to us here in Q.  We are approaching the midpoint of our snowbird season and are almost out of the five pounds of coffee we started with.  Jeff is going to roast two pounds each of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe half-caff, Sweet Seattle Dreams half-calf, and Cafe Europe Blend half-caff.  He will let it out-gas for a couple of days and then vacuum seal it in one-pound portions and mail it to us in a USPS flat rate box that will go to our P. O. Box in Q.  That should be enough to get us home even if we do not get there until late April.

Butch is always looking out for us and trying to help us spend our retirement dollars so he sent me a link to a portable two-tank water de-ionizing system that is available from RVupgrades.com.  The system is intended for washing/finishing cars and RVs as de-ionized water has had all of the dissolved minerals removed and does not leave spots on surfaces when it dries.  It is not, however, considered suitable for drinking.  The two tanks are plumbed in series and use special resin beds that have to be replaced when exhausted rather than recharged.  The first tank removes cations and the second removes anions, leaving the water completely deionized.  The cations are the positively charged ones typically “removed” by water “softeners”, such as calcium, iron, and magnesium, through ion exchange with sodium.  The anions are the negatively charged ones that water softeners typically do not remove, including fluoride and sodium.  The dual tank system is about 33% more expensive than a single tank portable water softener, but given the time, expense, and frustration I am experiencing trying to clean and wax our motorcoach I am seriously considering ordering one tomorrow.

I uploaded two consolidated blog posts yesterday and another one this afternoon.  I consolidated the posts for December 21 – 26, 2014, selected and processed the photos, and then took a break to sit outside and just enjoy the weather.  No book, no iPad, no computer; just ahhhh.  It was 78 degrees F with 19% relative humidity, a steady breeze from the northwest, and a hot sun shining through absolutely clear blue skies.  Linda and I agreed that it was the most perfect weather day we have had so far this winter.

Linda had some seitan ‘mock’ beef in the freezer that she heated in a saucepan and served with basmati rice accented with soy sauce.  Very simple but very tasty.  After dinner I uploaded the December 21 – 26 consolidated blog post along with 12 photos, entered all of the tags, and published it.

I got an e-mail yesterday from Cherie Ve Ard of Technomadia asking if we would be interested in previewing/testing another new website.  I said ‘yes’ and she responded with the URL for the development site.  When I was done with our website I went to the new one and created an account.  I got an activation e-mail, clicked the link, and was able to login.  I spent an hour looking around the site and captured my impressions and suggestions in an e-mail back to the development team.  I took a few minutes to investigate portable water deionizers but by then it was too late to get involved in any serious research so I went to bed.

2015/02/11 (W) Update This!

Hi Jolly's (Hadji Ali's) gravesite in the Quartzsite Cemetary; allegedly the most visited place in Q.

Hi Jolly’s (Hadji Ali’s) gravesite in the Quartzsite Cemetary; allegedly the most visited place in Q.

Linda’s cell phone rang just before 8 AM.  It was Barb.  She and Jim were up, dressed, and had the golf cart out and ready to go to the Farmers Market.  When we mentioned it yesterday Barb said she wanted to go and Linda indicated that it was open from 8 AM to noon.  Somehow that got translated into leaving at 8 AM to go to the market.  Linda, being a good sport, got up, got dressed and walked over about 8:15 and said she was ready to go.  No breakfast, no coffee, just the “git er done” spirit of the old west.  I stayed behind and got the coffee ready to brew when she returned.  I then got to work on computer stuff in the true “git er done” spirit of the new/virtual west.

They returned from the Farmers Market around 9:30 AM.  Linda bought another Romanesco brocciflower, some Brussels sprouts, grapefruit, and oranges.  To our delight Barry’s Breads was also there and had a few loaves of Barry’s Basic Bread.  He told Linda he will be around, at least at the Wednesday Farmers Market, through the end of this month.

As much as I would like to have de-ionized water available for rinsing the coach as I wash it, I decided not to speed hundreds of dollars without first doing deeper research into the available technologies and their life cycle costs.  I had enough other stuff to do today that I did not want to make time to dig into this new topic.

Linda saw a photographers vest at the Salvation Army resale store the other day but did not buy it as it was $15, pricey for the SA, and she wasn’t sure it would fit me.  We drove over to the store to see if it was still there.  It was, and it was too small for me.  It also had a defective zipper.  For a moment I thought we were going to have to buy it so I could take it home and cut it off.  I managed instead to pull it off over my head like a t-shirt and Linda was then able to get the zipper undone and put it back on the rack.  This was my first time in the store so while we were there I found two pairs of shorts for $2 each, a third pair for $0.50, and a lightweight, lined, waist-length London Fog jacket for $0.25.  Linda found a white hand-held mixer with two beaters for $4.  Deal.

When we got back Linda called the Prince of Tucson RV Park and made a reservation for the evening of Thursday, March 5th.  Lou and Val Petkus will already be there and this will allow us to caravan into the SKP Escapade at the Pima County Fairgrounds first thing Friday morning.   By coming in together we will be able to park together which will make our staff photography work more convenient.

My computer indicated that it had a large number of updates to install; 34, to be exact.  It was a 334 MB download so I turned on our Verizon Mi-Fi and switched my computer over to it.  The Mi-Fi is much faster than the Wi-Fi and I find that with large downloads the faster I get them done the more likely they are to complete successfully.  When those were done downloading and installing I had to restart my computer to finish the installation.  I also had an updated driver available for the NVIDIA GeForce graphics processor, so I downloaded and installed that.

 

I figured that if I had updates for my computer Linda would have them for hers.  I switched her computer over to our Mi-Fi and checked for updates.  She had 20 recommended and 4 optional.  I selected all 24 and the download was 980 MB.  That’s a lot of updates so I started it and let it run.  As always, finishing the installation required the computer to be rebooted.  When it restarted her computer the screen was once again functioning normally.  Go figure.  She also had an Adobe Creative Cloud update so I started that.  It failed at the 29% point so closed it and restarted it.  The second time it ran to completion.

Linda needed to work at her computer so we both sat at the dinette table and did our respective computer things.  She brought our financial records up-to-date in Quicken and I compiled and then uploaded a consolidated blog post for the last six days of December 2014.  I had e-mails going back and forth with some of our fellow FMCA Freethinkers regarding the Peg Leg gathering and ended up joining the Freedom From Religion Foundation.  I’ve meant to do that for a while and the electrons finally aligned just right this afternoon.

Hi Jolly's pyramid gravesite marker is a State Historical Site.

Hi Jolly’s pyramid gravesite marker is a State Historical Site.

Somewhere during the course of the afternoon we had sandwiches for lunch and snacked on dried fruits and nuts.  Kathi Slater called to check on Linda’s travel arrangements, after which I made popcorn.  Linda borrowed a small cooler from Butch and Fonda for our 2-day trip to California and back.  Fonda came over to go through the chores involved in caring for the cats while we are away and Linda gave her a set of keys to the bus.

I had seen a quick notification from the RV Internet Resource Center (Mobile Internet Aficionados membership website) that WiFiRanger had finally released their new firmware upgrade for the WiFiRanger Mobile.  Using my iPad as the control panel I switched our WFR-MT from the Wi-Fi/DSL connection to our Verizon Mi-Fi.  Again, I wanted to make sure this upgrade got downloaded as quickly as possible through the most reliable connection we have.  The download was reasonably quick but the installation took quite a while.  My iPad eventually lost contact with the WFR-MT and I just left it to finish and went over to visit with Butch and Fonda and Linda.  We came back to our coach when their dinner was ready and the WFR-MT firmware upgrade had finished installing successfully.  I switched the connection back to the Wi-Fi/DSL that we get to use as part of our “rent” while we are here.  I switched our laptops back to our internal Wi-Fi network and then shut the Verizon Mi-Fi off to let it recharge.

Neither of us was very hungry after snacking late this afternoon so Linda sliced the remaining tofu and pan-seared it.  She caramelized onions, added BBQ sauce, and served it open faced over the tofu.  After dinner Linda made a list of things we needed to take tomorrow while I made a final check of e-mail.  I e-mailed Lou Petkus to let him know that we were booked into the Prince of Tucson RV Park for March 5th.  I sent a message to Curtis Coleman via RVillage to accept his invitation to boondock in his driveway and see if March 3 and 4 would work for him.  He phoned back to confirm that it would be OK and then sent his address via TXT message.  I also had an e-mail from Kate de Fuccio and replied to that.  I checked for updates and my computer had several more to install so I started that process.  I checked Linda’s computer but she did not have any updates pending.  Although we got a lot of other things done today it felt like I had mostly dealt with computer updates.  Update days are often like that and you cannot schedule them because you never know when Microsoft is going to drop a big ‘update bomb’ in your lap.

Linda went to bed around her usual time.  I turned in shortly thereafter and much earlier than I have been.  We plan to get up at 6 AM tomorrow, have a light breakfast, finish packing for our trip, and be on the road at 7 AM.  We will stop at Albertson’s in Blythe, California for some water, ice, and other snack items to get us through the day to dinner at Native Foods in Palm Springs and give us something to eat on Friday while we are at the Peg Leg gathering.  Albertson’s opens at 6 AM PST, which corresponds to our 7 AM MST departure time.  We should arrive at the south entrance to Joshua Tree National Park around 7:30 AM PST which will give us a good, long day to explore the park.

 

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.

 

2014/12/21-25 (N-R) The Holidays Arrive

2014/12/21 (N) Winter Solstice

Linda was reading an interesting tidbit online this morning about the winter solstice, which occurs today in the northern hemisphere.  It usually occurs on the 21st, like today, but occasionally slips into the 22nd.  While it is the day of the year with the least hours of sunlight (between sun up to sun down) it is not the day with the latest sunrise (which occurred a couple of weeks ago) or the earliest sunset (which does not occur for a couple of more weeks).  Why is that?  Axial tilt, elliptical orbits, and a “day” that is not exactly 24 hours.  Science is fun.

Today was a stay-at-home / stay-in-town day for us.  Linda vacuumed the coach and mopped the floor tiles.  She says she likes to do this once a week to keep the cat hair under control.  By “likes” I think she means “needs.”  She also decided to do the laundry.  When we are at our house the laundry is usually my chore but for some reason, to which I am not privy, she takes over this chore when we are living in the RV, at least initially.  The same thing happened last year at Williston Crossings RV Resort, although we eventually both did laundry until I was able to win back my rightful chore.  So far again this year it has been her self-selected task here at Quartzsite and I have not gone out of my way to reclaim my rightful place as master of the laundry.

What I did instead of laundry was spend the morning finishing our 2014 Year-in-Review holiday letter.  Linda proof read it and then I converted it to PDF and did a final check of the layout to make sure the text and photos had not shifted or been clipped.  I copied it to a flash drive so we can take it someplace in Blythe tomorrow and have it printed.

The other day I noticed that the manifold pressure sensor (turbo boost) on Butch and Fonda’s 6v92 was mounted vertically on the front passenger side of the ECM.  I could not see exactly how it was mounted, however, so today I finally looked it up in the DD 92 Series manual.  I did not attempt to reattach our sensor module today but I was curious to see what would be involved.  I also continued to interact with other Prevost owners on the Prevost Community forum regarding the turbo boost issues and the dashboard gauge, which does not have the correct scale for our engine.  That thread has led to a dialogue about the SilverLeaf systems, including the VMSpc that we have, and an alternative system from RV Tech Tools that uses an iPad app named “RV Dash” and a wireless (WiFi) interface named “CANpod” from Cubix Labs.

With our various chores done we had a light lunch of chickpea salad on a bed of mixed greens and then went for a long walk.  The walk took us down Washington Ave. and then over to Kitsap Ave. to see a gorgeous Adobe house that Linda had discovered on a previous walk.  That led us to the backside of the west-central “vendor” (flea market) area on the north side of Main St.  We are not collectors, and we are not into antiques, guns, rocks, jewelry, or junk, so we saw very little that interested us.  We did see a few pieces of Pyrex, which our daughter and son-in-law were collecting at one time, and I am always on the lookout for a good deal on a tool I can’t live without, but mostly we saw endless quantities of stuff that we could not fathom anyone buying.

We crossed Main Street and visited the Tyson’s Well Stagecoach Stop Museum.  The grounds and building were open, admission was free, and it was unattended.  There were items for sale and if we had wanted something we would have put the money in the collection box.  That’s small town.

We headed east on Main Street and crossed back to the north side using the crosswalk at AZ-95 (Central Ave.).  We then continued east and stopped at the Road Runner Market.  We were pleased to find that they had a small but good selection of fresh produce.  On our way out the door the florist gave Linda a red and white carnation.  We will definitely be doing some of our local grocery shopping there.  We knew there was a restaurant/bakery on the far east end of Main Street so we kept on walking.  Sweet Darlene’s looked like a nice local place for a home-cooked style meal, but did not have anything on the menu we could eat.  The bakery turned out to be a small display case with pies and sweet rolls, but they did not make their own bread, so we won’t have any reason to come back.

By this time it was getting to be late afternoon, the cloud layer had thickened, and it was getting a bit chilly so we headed back towards Central Avenue.  We counted laundromats along the way, and passed at least four before getting back to our coach.  Not that we need a laundromat—we have a laundry where we are staying—but with all of the boondockers in and around Q it is a matter of some curiosity to us how/where they take care of things like this.  By the time we got back to our coach we had walked just over five miles.

Sunset over the Dome Rock Mountains due west of our encampment.

Sunset over the Dome Rock Mountains due west of our encampment.

By 5:15 PM the sun had slipped just below the mountains to our southwest and the sky started to glow pink for 360 degrees around us.  The sunset went on for over 30 minutes, the pinks deepening to reds.  And then, just like that, the color was gone and darkness enveloped the valley.

For dinner Linda made a simple green salad with raisins and peanuts.  She then heated up some vegan re-fried beans, pan-grilled a package of fajita vegetables she got from Connie before they left, and then heated two tortillas.  We each made a tasty roll up, adding some salsa and vegan sour cream.  She washed some black seedless grapes and set them out for desert.  They were very refreshing after the somewhat heavier and spicy main course.

2024/12/22 (M) Compressed

We had planned on driving to Blythe, California today but those plans changed fairly early in the morning.  Butch got an update that his air-compressor was on a UPS truck in Blythe and scheduled for delivery today.  I had promised to help him with the installation and provide a few tools he did not have with him so we decided to stick around camp.  We were also waiting for Connie’s realtor, Carolyn, to come by and pick up two yellow Post Office slips.

Linda took her morning walk after breakfast while I downloaded the October and November issues of Bus Conversion Magazine in both standard- and high-definition.  I was really glad to finally see these issues.  The October issue included my article on our T. F. Hudgins Spinner II Centrifugal By-pass Oil Cleaner project.  That was my one remaining article waiting to be published.  I have at least a half dozen in process, at least that many more for which I have taken photos (and written blog posts), and a very long list of future projects, so it’s time to get the next batch of articles ready to submit.

When Linda got back I drove to the print/copy/fax/pack/ship/etc. store on east Main Street to see if they could print our holiday letter.  They had plain 8.5×14 white paper, and the photos looked OK, but it was going to cost $4 per letter ($2/side) so I paid for the one copy and left.  They suggested that I try Weeks Printing in Blythe (20 miles west) or Staples in Lake Havasu City (70+ miles north).  Since we will likely head to Blythe tomorrow we will check out Weeks first.

As long as I was out I stopped at Barry’s Breads and bought a couple of fresh “rolls” which were really small loaves of bread.  Barry runs a little seasonal bakery out of a temporary vendor stand on the northeast corner of Central Avenue (US-95) and Kuehn Street.  Most of his products have butter or cream cheese as ingredients—his Danish pastries are as big around as a dinner plate—but he does make just plain bread and everything is made fresh daily.  Back in camp Linda called Weeks Printing and they quoted $1.25 for each 2-sided letter.  Much better.  We will check them out when we make it to Blythe; probably tomorrow.

For lunch Linda made a batch of her scrumptious chickpea salad/spread and served it on one of the rolls I bought at Barry’s.  After a week of cloudy skies, cool temperatures, and a little rain we finally had a day with clear, sunny skies and the high temperature up into the 70s.  Butch decided to remove his defective air-compressor and there wasn’t anything we could do to help (or stop him) so we decided to clean some more of our coach exterior.  I wanted to work from the top down, which meant starting with the roof.  That, in turn, meant getting out the Little Giant convertible extension/step ladder and setting it up as a 14 foot extension ladder.  In this configuration it extends beyond the top edge of the roof at the front, making it safer for me to get up on the lower roof area from the driver’s side.

Rinsing down the roof of the coach (photo by Linda).

Rinsing down the roof of the coach (photo by Linda).

The roof was very dirty and it appeared that we might have more than just embedded dirt to deal with.  The roof has a sprayed-on ceramic-infused white coating with a surface akin to medium grit sandpaper.  It reflects sunlight and provides a nice nap for walking on, but also traps dirt.  The last time the roof was cleaned was in early April, just before we left Williston Crossings RV Resort.  I had been on the roof subsequent to that, in our pull-through driveway at home, using it as a platform for trimming tree limbs.  I do not recall it being unusually dirty at that time, but I was focused on other things.  If it had been, I probably would have washed it, but maybe not; I was focused on other things.

I used a little bit of Dawn dish soap in several gallons of water and our soft, long handle, brush to try and scrub it clean and then rinsed it with softened water.  It was better by the time I was done but far from 100% clean.  I also scrubbed all of the metal awning covers and then hosed them off and rinsed the awning fabric.  When I was done on the roof I sprayed off all four sides of the bus, but even with the softened water it left spots and streaks.  Another unfortunate side effect of this work is that it frightened our male cat, Jasper, who ended up hiding behind the steering column in an attempt to escape the sights and sounds of a ‘monster’ on the roof.

We would like to get the body clean but there’s no point doing anything until I get the roof finished (Linda does not climb ladders and she does not get on the roof of the bus.)  At a minimum I am going to have to use a stiff scrub brush and a stronger solution of Dawn dish soap, or perhaps a commercial cleaner that can treat mold/mildew along with just plain dirt.  We will then have to do the vertical surfaces in small sections, scrubbing, rinsing, and drying as we go.  We have a sprayer for our hose that has a small bottle for additives and one of the reasons I bought it was to try using a dishwasher rinse aid, like Jet Dry, to see if it would eliminate spotting.  To-date, however, I have not tried that.

The old Bendix Tu-Flo 700 air-compressor out of Butch & Fonda's MC-9.

The old Bendix Tu-Flo 700 air-compressor out of Butch & Fonda’s MC-9.  The governor is the silver thing on the left.  The open port on top is the air discharge where the unloader valves are located.

Once Butch had the old air-compressor out of their bus he turned the input shaft and noted that the pistons were not pumping air.  This confirmed that something had failed internally and ordering a replacement was the right thing to do.  There wasn’t much else to do so we all sat around in the warm sun and waited for the UPS truck to show up, which it finally did around 3:45 PM.  We (me, Linda, and Fonda) suggested that Butch wait until tomorrow to start installing it, but we knew that was not going to happen.  The compressor was a significant road failure that had bugged him since it happened and he was anxious to get it fixed.

 

The new (re-built) Bendix Tu-Flo 700 air-compressor with the old spline and new port plugs.

The new (re-built) Bendix Tu-Flo 700 air-compressor with the old spline and new port plugs.

The Bendix Tu-Flo 700 he received is designed specifically for mounting on Detroit Diesel 92 series 2-stroke engines but has more ports on it than are typically used in this application.  Making sure to match the configuration of the old compressor, Butch installed new plugs in the unneeded ports.  He then removed the fittings from the old unit one at a time and installed them in the new one, being careful to line them up exactly the same way.  I helped by holding the compressor on a work table while Butch tightened the pipe threads.  This was the easy part of the project as we were standing at a tall bench with plenty of room to work and good light.

 

The new air-compressor with fittings.  Note the alignment marks for orienting the fittings correctly.

The new air-compressor with fittings. Note the alignment marks for orienting the fittings correctly.  The spline is in the upper left of the photo.

The hard part was getting the air-compressor re-installed.  Butch eventually got it onto two of the four mounting studs, which then took the weight.  We discovered a clearance issue with one of the port plugs and he had to pull the compressor back out.  He removed a plug from the old compressor, which did not stick out as far, and reused it in the new compressor.  With the compressor back on the studs it now lined up better but the spline would not engage the drive gear on the end of the engine camshaft.  He put a wrench on the crankshaft pulley nut and turned the engine slightly by standing on the end of it while I jiggled the air-compressor.

The "governor" mounted on the new compressor.

The “governor” mounted on the new compressor.

The spline eventually engaged the engine gear and the air-compressor gear enough that Butch was able to fully seat the flange and insert/tighten the four mounting studs, lock washers, and nuts.  Per the instructions, he reconnected all of the lines except for the air discharge and called it a night.  The coolant goes back in tomorrow and Butch will then start the main engine to make sure the compressor works, check for leaks, and let any contaminants get blown out the discharge fitting.  If everything looks good he will attach the discharge line, which connects the outlet port of the air-compressor to the coach air system, and air up the bus.

The new air-compressor (blue) mounted on the rear of the engine block (towards the front of the bus).

The new air-compressor (blue) mounted on the rear of the DD6V92TA engine block (towards the front of the bus) in Butch and Fonda’s MCI MC-9B NJT.

At least we were successful in convincing Butch to wait until tomorrow to put the coolant back in the engine.  By the time we finished working, put our tools away, and got cleaned up it was 7:30 PM and had been dark for two hours.  Linda reheated the leftover fajita fixings and we had open-faced tortillas with Fritos corn chips, salsa, black grapes, and Sangria.  We were both tired so we relaxed for a while after dinner and then went to bed.

2024/12/23 (T) Blythe, CA

We got a call from Connie right after breakfast letting us know that the two packages Carolyn picked up yesterday were for us and Butch.  We needed to pick them up before 11AM as Carolyn had an appointment at that time.  Linda was headed out for her morning walk anyway so she walked to Rock Reality, near the post office and uptown drugs, to get the packages from Carolyn.  (Carolyn is Joe and Connie’s realtor.)  She dropped off the two P. O. Box – Mail Pickup Notice cards at the post office while she was there.

Our package was from Madeline (Brendan and Shawna), to be opened on Christmas Day.  Butch’s package was the unloader valve kits for our Bendix Tu-Flo 700 air-compressors.  He ordered them while we were in Forest City, Arkansas for delivery to Amarillo, Texas but they did not arrive in time so his friend forwarded them to our Quartzsite location.

Butch and Fonda used most of the morning to put the coolant back into the engine.  Our buses, which still have their over-the-road heating systems, hold a lot of coolant.  Ours requires 34 gallons.  The buses are not identical, but I suspect theirs requires at least 30 gallons.  And it is very important that the cooling system is filled to capacity and has had all of the air purged out of it.  It’s a big, messy job.

They got as much in as they could by standing on a ladder and pouring it through a funnel into the filler tube for the surge tank.  The radiators on the MCI MC-9 are located above the engine, one on each side wall at the rear of the bus, and the surge tank is located above them, so the filler tube is approximately 9 feet from the ground.  Butch started the engine to warm it up enough for the thermostat to open and to circulate the coolant and opened a couple of bleeder valves to let air out.  He also checked the outlet fitting on the new air-compressor to verify that it was pumping air.  It was (hurray!), so he shut the engine off, attached the air line to the outlet fitting, and started it back up.  The chassis air system (suspension and brakes) came up to pressure and the air-dryer “sneezed” (momentarily opened its purge valve) so the system was fully operational.

We planned to go to Blythe, California today and Butch and Fonda wanted to go too, so he shut off the engine and they cleaned up their campsite.  We were sitting in our coach when the winds came up rather strong.  Linda checked the weather and the winds were out of the north at 20 MPH and forecast at 22-25 MPH until 6 PM.  That was strong enough for us to retract our awnings, close our roof vents, collapse our folding chairs, and stow our patio mat.  Butch and Fonda also retracted their patio awning and stored all of their outdoor equipment and furniture.  We had the old patio awning on our Itasca Sunrise torn off by strong (thunderstorm) winds while we were away from the motorhome and have been extra careful about awnings and wind ever since.

With all of that done we headed to Blythe in their Chevy Suburban.  From 879 feet ASL in Q we climbed to about 1200 feet ASL over the low mountain range that separates the two valleys, and then descended to 240 feet ASL as we crossed the Colorado River and entered California.  A few miles later we took the 7th Street exit and we were there.  The 20 mile drive was only five more miles than the trip we made from Williston Crossings RV Resort to the Publix grocery store (at the southwest corner of Gainesville, Florida) last winter, so it did not feel like a long way to go for groceries.  At home we have supermarkets about five miles away in three different directions.  Butch and Fonda typically drive into Logansport for their groceries, a distance of 12 miles, so we are all used to traveling some distance to purchase our food.

The Smart & Final Extra and the Albertson’s were on the NW and SE corners of 7th and Hobsonway, just north of I-10, making them especially convenient for us, so this is where we will likely shop every other week or so.  But our first destination was a few blocks farther west on S. Main St. where we found Weeks Printing.  They were eventually able to access our flash drive and open the PDF of our holiday letter.  They had a high quality paper in 8.5”x14” size, and were able to print our letter 2-sided on a good quality color laser printer for a very reasonable price of $1.25 per letter ($0.625 per side).  They did not take credit cards so we paid cash, but it saved us a 73 mile trip (one way) to Staples in Lake Havasu City.

Self-portrait of the blogger.  I am merely a reflection of my former self.

Self-portrait of the blogger. I am merely a reflection of my former self.

At the Smart & Final Extra we bought fresh produce, soy milk, and some bulk, canned, and packaged items.  They did not carry the Silk brand soy coffee creamer that I like, and there were a few items Butch and Fonda needed that the store did not have, so we drove across the street to Albertson’s and got those items.  I stayed in the car with the groceries, but I already knew that the Albertson’s would be a nice store based on our experience with the chain in Sheridan, Wyoming during summer 2013.  With our shopping done we returned to Quartzsite.

I carried the groceries from the car to the bus and Linda stored them, discovering that she had an empty tub available in the cabinet above the refrigerator.  By the time she was done it was approaching 4 PM so she prepared chickpea salad sandwiches as a quick, light lunch and then announced that we should go for a walk before it got dark.  She let me chose the route so we crossed Central Avenue (AZ-95) and walked to the city park, which has a very nice baseball field with lights and the only grass we have seen in Quartzsite.  There was also a skateboard facility, a football field, and two F4 Phantom jets (minus the engines and other equipment).  The Quartzsite Metal Detecting Club (QMDC) has a practice field adjacent to the park.  The park is located near the following municipal facilities:  Community Center and Library, County Court, Police Station, and Post Office Annex (where most of the P. O. Boxes are located).  The Fire Department is a little farther north on Tyson Wells Street just east of Central Avenue.

The sun was getting near the tops of the mountains to our southwest so we headed pack to our coach and settled in for the evening.  For dinner Linda made a barley risotto with garlic, shallots, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, vegetable both, and seasonings.  While she was cooking I got a call from my dad and got him caught up on our whereabouts and activities.  The risotto was excellent and we each enjoyed a glass of sangria with our meal.

I don’t know if we are just relaxed, or really tired after a hard summer and fall, but we have both been going to bed earlier and waking up later than usual.  Or perhaps it is just the effect of fresh air and sunshine.  Whatever the reason, it’s nice to be able to just sleep when that is what we feel like doing and get up when we are read.

We have an excellent Verizon signal here in Q.  Linda often likes to pace up and down Lollipop Lane while talking on the phone.  If you lived on Lollipop Lane you would too.

We have an excellent Verizon signal here in Q. Linda often likes to pace up and down Lollipop Lane while talking on the phone. If you lived on Lollipop Lane you would too.

2014/12/24 (W) Christmas Eve

It’s Christmas Eve and we woke to a temperature of 37 degrees, clear skies, light winds, and no snow.  The forecast high for today was 66, with no snow.  Do I miss snow at the holidays?  Not really.  At one time (high school) I considered myself something of a “romantic” in the sense that I liked the classical music of the romantic era, but I am not particularly nostalgia.  If I was, we would own a restored 1957 Chevy; red, of course.  No, we had snow at home before we left and as a harbinger of things to come we took it as a sign that our departure was overdue.  Christmas in the desert will be a new experience for us, but so far it looks very agreeable.  We will miss being with family, of course, but we are not alone here and technology keeps all of us much more connected than it once did.

Having been to Blythe yesterday we did not have any last minute shopping to do today.  The desert was there yesterday and will be there tomorrow (I presume) so we did not have to see it today.  With the holidays upon us I did not feel like working on bus projects.  Linda started addressing the envelopes for our Year-In-Review Holiday Letter and then worked on food preparations for tomorrow’s dinner with Butch and Fonda.  It seemed like a good day for me to finally start catching up on some things that I have not had time for in a while.  For instance, I need to work on articles for Bus Conversions Magazine, update our bus project list/status, update our website, upload some blog posts (OK, a LOT of blog posts), and catch up on the blogs I follow using the Feedly app on my iPad.  I am way behind on all of these tasks and starting to feel some pressure about it, albeit self-imposed.  I do not have to do any of these things if I don’t want to, of course, but they are activities that I enjoy and want to do.  Still, being way behind takes some of the fun out of it and makes it a bit more like work.  I won’t get caught up in one day or one week or even one month; it will take many weeks of persistent effort.

After checking e-mail, I settled in to work on my article about the exterior renovation of our motorcoach.  Michele Henry of Phoenix Paint helped me finish the article in early October but I still needed to select and caption all of the photos.  While I worked on that Linda walked to the Road Runner Market and managed to snag the last 3-pack of yeast.  When she got back she made her orange cranberry relish for tomorrow’s dinner.

We took a break for lunch and then Linda headed out for her daily power walk.  When she got back she continued addressing envelopes for our holiday letter.  Just as I was feeling like I needed a break, Butch knocked on the door to let me know he was working on a small project that might interest me.  He had already burped the coolant lines that supply heat to the living area of their bus when driving and gotten the last of the coolant into the system.  His new project was getting an alternator driven tachometer connected and calibrated.

It turned out that he needed positive DC power to the tachometer in addition to the ground and RPM signal.  He was able to temporarily pick up 24VDC from the positive terminal of the starter, found a convenient ground point, and picked up the rotational speed from the stator terminal on the back of the alternator.  With the engine running at low idle he measured the RPM of the main crankshaft pulley using an optical sensor instrument.  It was just over 600 RPMs so he adjusted the tach via a set screw on the rear to match the reading.  He kicked it into high idle and measured the rotational speed as 950 RPM.  That is what the tach displayed within the precision of the markings.  He already has a signal wire run from the engine compartment to the cockpit but needs to mount the tachometer in a separate bullet housing, connect the wire on both ends, and provide positive and negative (ground) DC to the instrument.  He decided not to take on that project today.

(Note:  RPM is universally understood to be an abbreviation for “Revolutions Per Minute” but that is not necessarily correct.  An object such as the pulley on the end of an engine crankshaft rotates about its own axis, just as the earth does, and has angular velocity which is properly measured in rotations per some unit of time or angular displacement per some unit of time.  The abbreviation is, of course, still RPM.  In the case of the pulley, however, Butch put a small piece of white tape on the face of the pulley at the outside edge to act as a target for his optical sensor.  If we consider the piece of tape as a separate object then it does, indeed, revolve around the center axis of the pulley, just as the earth revolves around the sun.  Viewed thus way, revolutions per minute is technically correct.  As with many things in physics, it depends on your frame of reference.  So much for today’s physics lesson.)

This building houses (L-2-R) the laundry room, the apartment, and a small workshop.

This building houses (L-2-R) the laundry room, the apartment, and a small workshop at our compound.

As long as I was outside I borrowed Butch’s metal detector and went in search of a couple of tie downs that Joe told us were buried somewhere near the outer edge of our patio awning.  I knew they were lined up with a reference mark on one of the concrete patio slabs and it did not take long to locate and uncover them.  We put a couple of medium-sized rocks on top of them so we could relocate them easily.

We got several multimedia messages from our son today with pictures of our grand-daughter at our daughter’s house helping make cookies.  Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline are spending the night and Katie is joining them tomorrow.  Butch and Fonda will spend most of the day at the local church Fonda selected, including a carry-in (pot luck) luncheon, but will have dinner with us around 6:30 PM.

I finally returned to our coach and worked on my article about the Zena power generating system I installed to charge our house batteries while driving.  Again, the article was mostly finished a long time ago, but I could not submit it until I completed the installation, got the system operational, and took a few more photos.  All of that happened in October and November but I was too busy with other projects and preparations to pull it all together at that time.  I had a couple of e-mails today from Gary, the publisher of Bus Conversion Magazine, indicating that the December 2014 issue might not be out until early January 2015, and wondering if I might have a finished article they could use.

For dinner Linda made a salad of dark mixed greens with raisins, nuts, and pear slices drizzled with raspberry walnut vinaigrette dressing followed by pan-seared tofu slices with caramelized onions and bar-b-que sauce served open-faced on hamburger buns.  We split a Sam Adams Pumpkin Spice Ale.  I am not a big fan of ales or pumpkin but beer seemed like the right beverage for this dish.  It was OK, but I would have enjoyed a Yingling or Shiner Bock more.

I made good progress on both articles today.  I got an e-mail from Mike, the editor of BCM, wondering if I had a finished article.  The ZENA article was close enough that I decided to finish it and upload it to our Dropbox before going to bed.  I e-mailed Mike back to let him known it was there and offered to finish the other one by the end of the weekend.

Earlier in the day I updated our personal WordPress site to the just released version 4.1 and updated several plug-ins and themes.  My last task before turning in for the night was to replicate the update process on the other three sites I manage.  By the time I got to bed it was Christmas Day.

2014/12/25 (R) Christmas in Q

The wind came up strongly overnight and we were awakened by the rattling of the vent fan domes.  From our north facing bedroom window we could see flags and the tops of trees blowing briskly in the wind.  We could also hear and see the awnings on the south/passenger side of the coach flapping.  Linda checked the weather channel app on her iPad and it reported winds at 20 MPH.  We were not expecting winds that strong until the daytime and they were strong enough for us to be concerned about our awnings.  By that point we were wide awake so we put on our sweatpants and shirts, slipped on some shoes, found a set of keys, got the step-stool out of the front bay and the awning rod out of the folding chair bay, retracted the two awnings, returned the rod and step-stool to their respective storage compartments, and finally went back to bed.

Linda got up at 6:30 AM in order to start making cinnamon rolls from scratch.  I usually get up first and make a pot of coffee but I was up past midnight working, so I slept in for another hour.  The yeast she bought yesterday wasn’t cooperating so we turned on one of the Broan ceramic cube heaters to try and create a warmer and more consistent environment to get the dough to rise.

We borrowed Butch and Fonda’s Verizon MiFi (unlimited data plan) so we could Facetime with our children and their families, who were gathered at our daughter and son-in-law’s house.  We got to watch all of them open the presents we left for them when we were there on Thanksgiving and they got to watch us open the gifts they sent with us or shipped to us here in Quartzsite.

Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline (son, daughter-in-law, and grand-daughter) sent a 2015 Shutterfly Calendar with photographs of all the different family members placed on the dates for birthdays, anniversaries, and such.  We do not need much at this point in our lives, but a collection of photographs that also reminds us of the people and dates that are most important to us is something we appreciate and treasure.  Meghan and Chris (daughter and son-in-law) bought us each a genuine Tilley hat.  I have known about these hats for a while but never bought one.  Given our outdoor oriented RV lifestyle, these were excellent gifts.

After we were done with our Facetime session Linda took the cinnamon rolls over to the apartment to bake since it has a range with an oven.  She will finish cooking dinner there later and the four of us will eat there this evening as it has a table that will seat four people.

The apartment bedroom.

The apartment bedroom.

In spite of early indications to the contrary the cinnamon rolls rose and baked just fine. The dough used flour, salt, vegan butter, yeast, and flax meal with water (egg substitute) and a little sugar.  The filling was made with brown sugar, vegan butter, cinnamon, and maple syrup.  The topping was a glaze of sugar, water, and vanilla with raisins and chopped walnuts.  Linda took two of them over to Butch and Fonda and we had some for breakfast still warm from the oven.  It’s a good thing that these are as much work to make as they are or I might want them for breakfast every day.   🙂

Linda had a call and TXT message from her sister (Marilyn) and sent a reply.  She was on her way to her housemate’s family gathering and they agreed they would talk later today.  She also sent merry Christmas TXT messages to her sister-in-law, Mary, and good friend, Diane.  At noon our time (1 PM CST, UTC-6) I called my sister to wish her a happy holiday.  Her daughter, grand-daughter, and future son-in-law had already been there in the morning as Ryan had to work that afternoon.

I made a second pot of coffee, which is unusual for us, but we planned to spend the day lounging around the coach cooking (Linda) and working on the computer (me).  Linda cleaned up the breakfast cookware, poured another cup of coffee, and started working on the chocolate cake for tonight’s dessert.  With the cake prepared and in the apartment oven she turned her attention to making the candied yams.  Once those were done the only thing left to do was bake the Tofurkey, roast the asparagus, and heat the gravy.  It was a lot work for her but it was spread out over two days and she enjoyed, and did it, willingly.  We could have gone out for dinner if she wanted, even though we would not have found much we could eat, but I am glad she preferred to cook.

Once I wrapped up the conversation with my sister I got back to work on the Outside Makeover (Exterior Renovation) article.  Although I thought I was done writing I made a few more edits and selected additional photos.  By 5 PM I had 74 photos selected and placed in sequence to match the flow of the article.  I had also done as much of that work as I cared to for the day.

We were down to 1/4 tank of fresh water so I decided to refill it.  About that same time Linda decided it was chilly enough in the apartment that she wanted the propane space heater turned on so I shut off the water and took care of that.  The heater had a hose that went through the wall at floor level to the outside with a regulator and POL fitting on the end of it.  I found a couple of 20 lb. propane tanks in the workshop and connected one of them to the regulator.  It took a while but I eventually got the pilot flame to light and then got the heater to ignite.  I then went back and finished filling our water tank.

The little apartment is very cute with three rooms: a bathroom on the east end, a bedroom on the west end, and a kitchen/dining/living room in the middle.  It has a shower, a 4-burner electric range with an oven, a refrigerator/freezer, a small microwave oven, the aforementioned space heater, a small window air-conditioner, a small TV/monitor with a satellite receiver, two easy chairs, a small dining table with four chairs, and a queen sized bed.  Marilyn is seriously considering coming for a visit the last week of January and if she does she will stay in the apartment and get to experience Quartzsite.

Linda starting to set the table in the apartment for Christmas dinner.  No pictures of Butch & Fonda (they are camera shy).

Linda starting to set the table in the apartment for Christmas dinner. No pictures of Butch & Fonda (they are camera shy).

We bought a bottle of Sternthaler Nurnberger Christkindles Gluhwein spiced red holiday wine at Central Market in Fort Worth, Texas to serve with our Christmas dinner.  It is a mulled wine that is supposed to be gently heated before serving, but we found it quite agreeable straight from the refrigerator.  About 20 minutes before dinner time we set it out on the counter to warm up slightly, the space heater doing a very effective job heating the small apartment even on its lowest setting.

Linda and Fonda both contributed dishes to the meal and Fonda made a couple of things that we could eat.  They brought chicken and traditional mashed potatoes for themselves but also tried some of the Tofurkey roast.  Linda made a vegan chocolate cake for dessert and whipped refrigerated coconut milk solids to use as a whipped cream substitute.  Our daughter did this for the Thanksgiving meal and we really liked it.

We sat in the apartment for a long time after dinner and just talked until we were all tired.  Linda and Fonda had already cleaned the dishes so we turned off the propane space heater and carried all of our stuff back to our coaches.  Linda put the leftovers away while I did a final check of my e-mail for the night.  I then shut my computer off and we headed to bed.  Like so many things in our retirement RV lifestyle, this Christmas holiday was a new and good experience.

 

2014/12/09-12 (T-F) On to Q

2014/12/09 (T) Elvis Is Not Dead

No, indeed, Elvis is alive and well and living in Alvarado, Texas with his owner, Donn and fellow dog Lucy.  Sweet animals both, we enjoyed their presence while visiting with Donn.

We heard Donn pull out a few minutes before 5 AM, in an attempt to beat the worst of the morning rush hour traffic headed into Dallas, but we were not ready to get up.  I think we finally piled out of bed around 7:30 AM to find that the fog was so thick we could not see the road at the end of Donn’s driveway.  We had targeted 9 AM as a departure time that would have us miss most of the morning traffic, and actually pulled out of our parking spot at 9:11 AM.  The fog was still thick but it was bright enough that we could usually see at least a quarter of a mile in our direction of travel.

We worked our way back onto northbound I-35W towards Fort Worth and kept to the right in spite of entering traffic.  We chose not to stop at the QT (Quick Trip) even though Diesel fuel was $3.08 per gallon, the least expensive we have seen in years.  The transition to I-20 westbound was via one of the very high ramps that are used to connect intersecting freeways around the Dallas / Fort Worth metropolis, but it was not a problem.  We continued to drive through fog for at least 90 minutes, so we could not tell you what Texas west of Fort Worth looks like if had to.  We stayed on I-20 all the way to Midland, Texas only stopping to fuel up at the Flying J Truck Stop on the far side of Abilene, Texas by which point the fog had lifted and it was partly sunny with temperatures in the upper 60s.  Eventually, however, the clouds closed back in, which made the last 90 minutes of the drive a bit less bright and easier on the eyes.

The bus ran well all day and I did better at getting on the accelerator in advance of climbing grades, spinning up the turbocharger and keeping the engine RPMs in the 1900-2000 range.  The bus took 98.135 gallons of fuel at the truck stop and we had traveled 553.8 miles since the last fill-up for an average of 5.64 MPG.  That included running our generator at the Wal-Mart in Texarkana, Texas on Friday. Our previous fill-up computed out at 5.45 MPG.  In our previous use of the coach I figured we were getting 6.0 MPG, but we had not done as much dry-camping as we did on this trip.  We have used the generator and the Aqua-Hot on this trip, both of which draw fuel from the main tank.

The only issue I had today was with the dual pyrometers, specifically the right one.  Historically the right pyro has read 50 – 100 degrees F higher than the left one, which would often stick on “0” and then swing up if I tapped on the gauge.  Both gauges have been tracking within 50 degrees since I rechecked the DDEC II connectors, but today the right gauge started lagging behind the left one, sometimes by a couple of hundred degrees.  If that difference was real it would be a real problem, but everything else looked, felt, and sounded OK, so I think this is a continuing problem with the instrument, and/or sensors, and/or wiring and connectors, but I will have to keep an eye on it.

A half hour before the GPS said we would arrive Linda tried calling the Wal-Mart in Midland several times but never got an answer.  We exited at Midland just before 3 PM and did not have any problem getting into the Wal-Mart parking lot which was very convenient to the freeway but relatively busy for that time of day on a Tuesday.  Not surprising, though, as Midland is the epicenter of the current oil and wind boom in west Texas.  The stretch of I-20 from Fort Worth to Midland is not desolate.  Sweetwater is the wind power capital of the USA, and all along I-20 there are “RV Parks” on both sides of the freeway.  Some of them were genuine, nice looking, RV Parks but most were makeshift looking places that appeared to have been created quickly to service (take advantage of?) a sudden need for places to park almost anything that might serve as shelter for energy workers.

As always, we checked with Customer Service to make sure it was OK to stay overnight.  They said it was but twice told us to “be careful.”  The warning had to do with leaving our vehicle for an extended period of time and risk having it towed.  Apparently “extended” meant weeks, not hours, and I assured them we would be gone first thing in the morning.  While we were in the store we picked up several bottles of PineSol and a couple of boxes of Calgon bath beads.  We prefer the larger, cylindrical plastic containers of Calgon but rarely find them in retail stores and pharmacies.  After we carried everything back to the coach I went for a walk to confirm our exit options for tomorrow morning.  We looked at satellite images on Google Maps last night so I had a good understanding of the parking lot and access roads, but I wanted to verify that information while it was still daylight.

For dinner we had a nice salad, a fresh apple, and Tofurkey brand turkey and vegan cheese sandwiches.  We were going to have the leftover chili from last night’s dinner, but the microwave and the Magnum charger are on the same leg, and the microwave acts like it is going to self-destruct if we try to use it while the charger is also drawing a large amount of current.  I may try moving the circuit breaker for the microwave to a position in the sub-panel that puts it on Leg 2 and see if that helps, but I have to maintain a reasonable load balance between the two legs.  It may be, however, that the microwave is more sensitive to a reduced voltage level than the other high power devices or things like lights or entertainment equipment, which just converts the AC to DC internally anyway.

I called Butch before dinner and they were still on the road in New Mexico.  He called me back after our dinner to let me know they were in a rest stop on I-25 and had the place to themselves.  By comparison, the Midland Wal-Mart was a busy place and most of the vehicles (drivers) seemed to find driving up and down the aisles to be a great inconvenience.  Instead, they took straight line paths across the parking lot, driving between closely spaced parked vehicles (including buses) at surprisingly high speed and didn’t always stop to see if another vehicle might be driving in the lane (where it belongs).  There was a Murphy USA filling station on the property, as well as a McDonalds, which contributed to the constant flow of traffic.

Butch had talked to Luke at U. S. Coach earlier today and got prices for the parts he presumes he needs to repair the main engine air-compressor (Bendix Tu-Flo 700 series) on their bus or replace it with a factory rebuilt one.  Either way the work will wait until we get to Quartzsite, Arizona.

We had a good a Verizon 4G/LTE cellular signal so I sent TXT messages to Donn and Chuck letting them know where we were and ended up having brief TXT message exchanges with both of them.  When we first arrived Linda sent TXT messages to both of our children updating them on our location.  We received messages while we were driving that our older grand-daughter, Katie, had been accepted to Michigan State University.  She applied to three state schools and Michigan Technological University was the first to accept her.  She is waiting to hear about a scholarship from them but knows for sure that she will be going to college somewhere in the fall of 2015 and will have to make a choice as to where.

2014/12/10 (W) Dream Catcher

We went to bed early last night knowing we planned to drive over 400 miles today and wanted to get an early start.  I was awake by 4 AM and finally got up at 5 AM.  The parking lot had thinned out and quieted down overnight but even at that hour tractor-trailer rigs were coming and going.  The house batteries were at 95% SOC when I turned the generator off at 8:45 PM last night and were at 70% SOC when I turned it back on when I got up.

Although I do not like to eat a big breakfast and drink coffee on days that I have to drive, I also do not like to travel too long on an empty stomach.  I have also noticed that lack of liquids can lead to a headache or general feeling of unwellness.  I was up early enough that I had a piece of raisin bread, a banana, and a small glass of grapefruit juice with time to digest it before we hit the road.

Linda got up at 5:30 AM and we started preparing the bus for travel at 5:45 AM.  We pulled out at 6 AM, using the route I had scoped out last night to work our way around behind the Wal-Mart and onto the service drive for I-20 and get position for the freeway entrance.  Once we were on the Interstate it was dark, of course, but it was also foggy.  In spite of those conditions traffic was heavy until we were well past Odessa.  Midland and Odessa are at the center of the current Texas energy (oil and wind) boom and between them are spread out along 30 miles of I-20.  I was definitely not the most scenic part of our trip to date.

The fog stayed with us almost to where I-20 ends and merges with I-10.  We drove through it for hours.  The rest of the day was a mix of sun and clouds.  The bus generally ran well but the turbocharger did not seem to be as responsive as it should be.  I continued to do better at anticipating grades and getting the engine RPMs and turbo boost up ahead of time but noticed that the turbo boost was not peaking off the scale the way it used to.

The speed limit on I-20 yesterday between Fort Worth and Midland was 75 MPH.  That continued through Midland and Odessa but once we were past Odessa it went up to 80 MPH.  I usually travel 60 to 62 MPH when the speed limit allows it but for stretches of today’s trip I set the cruise control at 65 MPH and sometimes traveled at 70 MPH.  Texas is a big place and west Texas is vast.  The speed limits are this high because it is safe to drive that speed out here, and you just have to go faster if you want to get across west Texas in any reasonable amount of time.

Towards the end of I-20 and once we were on I-10 the terrain became rolling and then slightly mountainous and was very pretty in a southwestern desert kind of way.  At some point we notice very large mountains off to the southwest.  Just before reaching El Paso we were very close to the Rio Grande River and realized that the mountains were now very close on the Mexican side of the river and were very large and very rugged.  I-10 through El Paso, Texas was an experience unto itself as there was road construction along its entire length for what seemed like endless miles.  On the other side of El Paso we had to stop at a Homeland Security check point where we went in with the trucks by mistake but got waived through.  Whenever I am unsure about overhead clearances I stick with the big rigs.

We continued on I-10W into New Mexico where it was joined by I-25 in Las Cruces and completed our run to Deming.  We pulled into the Escapees Dream Catcher RV Park at 11:50 MST, just shy of 7 hours after we pulled out of the Wal-Mart in Midland, Texas.  We had traveled 407 miles at an average speed of 58 MPH which was faster than our usual 50 MPH average.

Butch and Fonda were already checked-in to the RV Park and we took one of the sites next to theirs’.  They had developed an apparent chassis battery problem and Butch was trying to sort it out.  I got the shorepower hooked up while Linda prepared lunch.  She made open faced chili cheese dogs with some tofu hotdogs and the leftover chili from Monday night.

Butch needed a new battery for their Suburban so I rode with him to the local Wal-Mart.  He had them install it (no extra charge) but had to teach the “technician” how to do it.  He was also scoping out batteries for the bus but Wal-Mart did not have the Group 31’s he was looking for.  We stopped at both O’Reilly’s and NAPA auto parts stores and got prices then went back to do some additional diagnosis.  Butch suspects a shorted cell but has not confirmed that.

Linda suggested that I connect the sewer hose and fresh water line while it was still daylight with comfortable temperatures so that is what I did.  I decided to check out the two pyrometer sensors.  In the process I “discovered” a metal plate with an electrical harness plugged into it and a fitting for a hose but with only a small piece of hose attached to the fitting.  Butch identified the plate as the turbocharger boost sensor.  I found the loose end of the hose and followed it back to turbocharger outlet manifold.  That explained why I was not able to get the turbo boost and engine power I expected from the engine.  The hose was incredibly brittle and had to be replaced; not good.  We discussed options and appeared to have two: 1) Attach a new hose to the sensor tube and then try to splice it into the old hose, or 2) get a new barbed fitting for the manifold and run a new hose from there to the sensor.  We drove back to the NAPA store and got the parts we might need.

Butch removed the old fitting from the intake manifold and decided we could re-use it.  It took some doing but he got it installed.  We routed the new hose (fuel injector rated) to the sensor plate and connected it.  I could not figure out how to mount the plate so I left it sitting behind the computer on top of the engine where I found it.  I do not know if the old hose has been broken for a while or if it finally failed this afternoon when I grabbed it, but either way it was certainly leaking and was another potential disaster averted.

For dinner Linda made a nice green salad and pan-grilled tofu slices with Bar-B-Que sauce and caramelized onions.  After dinner we took advantage of our full hookups to take showers and get additional water in our waste tanks.  We watched an episode of Nova on the local PBS station and then went to bed.  Both sides of the air mattress were very hard.  When we checked the settings, my side was at 50 and Linda’s was at 85, both much higher than we usually set them.

The thought crossed my mind that the cats might have stepped on the controls, but that seemed unlikely as the buttons are slightly recessed and have to be pushed in to activate the system.  Besides, the odds of them stepping on the controls for both sides of the bed were very small.  Linda made an off-hand comment about altitude and I realized immediately that this was the effect of having climbed from 765 feet above sea level (ASL) in Alvarado, Texas to 2,862 ft. ASL in Midland, Texas, to 4,300 ft. ASL in Deming, New Mexico.  I also realized in that moment why the tire pressures were higher than I expected when I checked the PressurePro TPMS this morning before we pulled out of Midland.  Sometimes that which should be obvious is not.  We reset the air mattress pressures and drifted comfortably off to sleep.

2014/12/11 (R) RoVer’s Roost SKP CO-OP

I was up at 6 AM after a good night’s sleep and Linda got up around 7 AM.  The overnight low was 38 degrees Fahrenheit, and we did not have any of the heaters turned on, so the front of the coach got a bit chilly.  We were parked facing east so the rising sun lit up the front of our coach and helped warm it up.  I checked on the house battery SOC and then settled in to write for a while.  We had a light breakfast of oatmeal and juice around 7:30 AM.  At 7:45 AM I turned on the engine block heater and Aqua-Hot pre-heat pump.  Linda gathered up the trash shortly thereafter and went for a walk.

I failed to mention in yesterday’s blog post that our grand-daughter Katie called Linda yesterday to let us know that she had received a full academic scholarship to Michigan Technological University in Marquette, Michigan.  We were, of course, very excited to receive this news.  Katie has been an excellent student throughout high school and we are confident she will do well at MTU if she decides to go there.

Fonda was out with their two dogs, Rascal and Daffy, around 7:30 AM but there was no sign of activity beyond that until 8 AM when Linda returned from her walk and said Butch was outside looking at their chassis battery situation.  I put on the hooded sweatshirt I use when I have to work outdoors in cool weather and joined them.

Butch had left the 24 VDC battery charger on the chassis batteries overnight.  Both batteries seemed to be holding an adequate voltage so he decided to swap them rather than replace the one that seemed to be a problem yesterday (lower 12 volts).  After disconnecting the cables we pulled both batteries out.  These are 8D lead acid (wet cell) batteries and weight ~160 pounds each.  Butch topped off the fluid level in all of the cells.  He then put the batteries back in place, reversing their position, and reconnected the cables.  We re-checked voltages and everything looked OK so Butch decided they were ready to travel today rather than spend another night in Deming.

Yesterday we had discussed driving to the Escapees Saguaro Co-op RV Park in Benson, Arizona.  Called them just before 5 PM and they said they had plenty of spaces available.  Linda was checking the details of the park online and discovered that they have a 40,000 pound weight limit, but no one at the park could explain why.  Further research revealed that the last 0.3 miles into the park might be a weight restricted road.

Benson would have been a short drive of just over 180 miles, leaving us a longer drive for Friday if we wanted to get all the way to Quartzsite.  Looking at the map it appeared that Casa Grande, Arizona, 280 miles from Deming, might be a better stopping point.  As it turned out, the Escapees (SKP) RoVer’s Roost CO-OP RV Park is located near Casa Grande and did not have weight restrictions.  Linda called to make sure they had space for us, and after consulting with Butch and Fonda decided that was where we would head.

Linda checked online for fuel stops and prices.  The best price was $3.15 at a Pilot/Flying J just 10 miles shy of Casa Grande, but I wasn’t sure we could comfortably make it that far with adequate reserves as we were already at 1/2 tank mark on the fuel gauge.  I dumped our waste tanks, stowed the hoses, turned on the chassis batteries, opened the various air valves, disconnected the shorepower cord, and stored it.  We secured all of the bays and then hooked up the car for towing.  When Butch and Fonda were close to being ready we fired up the bus engine and checked the exterior lights.

We pulled out of the SKP Dream Catchers RV Park at 10 AM with our first stop planned for a Flying J Truck Stop about 60 miles west of Deming.  We had a good run on I-10 across the rest of New Mexico and into Arizona, exiting onto I-8 about 13 miles from the RoVer’s Roost RV Park.  The bus ran like it had a new engine.  The turbocharger was very responsive to the accelerator, producing more boost than I saw yesterday.  The engine had noticeably more power climbing grades, with the pyrometers reaching 850 – 900 degrees F and the engine coolant temperature reaching 195 – 200 degrees F.  Repairing the turbo boost sensor hose yesterday was clearly the right thing to do.

The scenery was beautiful and the largest city on our route was Tucson, which appeared to have a very nice downtown area.  The city was spread out for 30 miles from east to west and was not nearly as hectic as the drive through El Paso, Texas yesterday.  We arrived at RoVer’s Roost SKP CO-OP AT 3:15 PM MST with 3/4’s of a tank of fuel.

RoVer’s Roost is a very dense RV Park with closely spaced lots that are permanently assigned to co-op members and most of which were occupied.  The lots were all perpendicular to the long, straight, narrow roads.  All sites, including the boondocking area, were back-in which required us to unhook our cars.  The sites were also limited to a 40 foot long RV maximum, but many of them were “developed” in such a way that they would not accommodate a rig that long.  Registration took longer than it should have but eventually we were escorted to our site by a man in a golf cart who guided me as I backed into the site.  He had obviously done this many times and knew how to get a 40 foot motorhome into a tight space with limited room to turn so we were glad to have his assistance.

Once we were in our spot he escorted Butch and Fonda to their site and helped back them in.  Their bus developed an air problem after they pulled into the park, producing a squealing sound when Butch applied the parking breaks.  Butch had to bleed the pressure down to 30 PSI to get the noise to stop.  He re-pressurized the system and the noise did not reappear, so he put the Quadra Big Foot leveling jacks down.

I updated our recent locations in RVillage.  The four of us then went for a walk around the park to check it out and scope out our exit path.  We met a very nice lady resident who has painted a number of murals on storage sheds around the park and the ones we saw were very well done.  We returned to our coach and had dinner.  I had a TXT message from Chuck and called him after dinner to tell him about the turbo boost problem and solution.  We turned in early and watched a football game for a while before turning out the lights and going to sleep.

2014/12/12 (F) RR to Q

Today was our 13th day on the road since leaving home on November 30th.  We could easily have taken a month to do this repositioning, stopping along the way at more places for more nights and exploring each area, but we chose not to.  In part this was because we were caravanning with friends, and in part because we both had bus issues along the way and we were all anxious to just “get there.”

Pulling in to 715 Lollipop Ln in Quartzsite, Arizona.

Pulling in to 715 Lollipop Ln in Quartzsite, Arizona.

RoVer’s Roost has WiFi but we were not offered the use of it when we registered.  We had an excellent Verizon 4G/LTE signal, however, so I checked RVillage last night and realized that I had not updated our location since Alvarado, Texas.  In the span of just a few minutes I checked into Midland, Texas, the SKP Dream Catcher RV Park in Deming, New Mexico, and finally the RoVer’s Roost SKP CO-OP in Casa Grande, Arizona.  I posted a comment about this and drew a comment about “…living in the fast lane” and several “likes.”  RVillage is not only useful, it’s fun.

The park home page showed 11 check-ins, so I perused the list and discovered that Forrest and Mary Clark were apparently here.  I say “apparently” because, like our situation, the information is only accurate if the person has kept it up to date.  I sent Forrest a message and he replied that they were, indeed, at the park and provided their site number.  I did not see the reply until this morning, however, so I messaged him back and said we would stop by before we pulled out.  Like us, they are also headed to “Q” for the first time this winter.

I was up by 6:30 AM and made a half pot of coffee.  We have not been making coffee in the morning and really miss it.  We enjoyed our Teeko’s Cafe Europe Blend while watching a gorgeous sunrise, the first of many we expect to see.  The temperature had dropped to 50 degrees F overnight from the high of 76 yesterday afternoon; warmer than normal for this time of year.  RoVer’s Roost has recycling bins, so Linda gathered up the various packaging materials she has been saving and walked them over to the bins along with the trash.  She likes to go for morning walks and has missed doing so while working on the software conversion project for the bakery since mid-September.

At 8 AM the house batteries were at 93% SOC.  The last time they were at 100% was at the end of our stay in Alvarado, Texas where we sat for three night plugged-in to “50 Amp” shorepower.  The Magnum ME-ARC remote was showing 116-120 VAC in, which more closely matched the main panel gauges than I have seen recently.  I obviously have some investigating to do (voltage measurements) and need to revisit the manuals for the 4024 inverter/charger and its add-on modules.  As with everything on this coach, there is no magic involved, just basic engineering principles.  The problem comes when there is inadequate documentation on the construction of the systems, including their principles of operation and their specific interconnections.  That’s when the detective work begins and I have to be particularly cautious about coming to premature conclusions regarding all of this.  It is better to admit that I do not understand how something works than to assume that I do and turn out to be wrong (not that that has ever happened).

In my chat with Chuck last night he suggested that I might want to eventually replace the turbo boost (manifold) sensor hose with a silicon one.  The two hottest places on the engine are the exhaust manifolds and the turbocharger and this hose connects to the latter.  He planned to check the hose on his coach, which is the same type and age as ours, first thing this morning.  His coach has more miles on it than ours (we think) so this hose is likely to be in bad shape on his coach too.  At some point I would like to have the radiator re-cored and that would be the time to replace ALL of the coolant hoses, and anything else on the engine that is made of rubber, with new silicon parts if possible, or at least with new rubber.

Along those same lines we were discussing air-powered accessories last night.  We do not use the bedroom pocket door and I will probably disconnect it or add a shutoff valve.  The waste tank dump valves are also air-powered and I may do the same thing to them.  That would leave the toilet and the shutters for the two front air-conditioner condensers as the only devices that needs air to work while we are parked.  We like the air flush toilet—it is fairly water efficient—and we would keep it if we could eliminate air leaks to the point that the auxiliary air-compressor only runs a few times a day.  The other downside to the toilet, however, are the difficulty and expense of getting spare parts.  We are considering replacing it with a standard gravity flush “RV style” toilet when we redo the water tanks, hopefully next year.  That would greatly reduce the need to run the auxiliary air-compressor while we are parked.  It does, however, also help maintain the air pressure in the suspension system.

We walked down to Forrest and Mary’s site at 8:30 AM and they came out to greet us.  Precision RV pulled up just as we got there.  They are affiliated with AM Solar in Oregon and are installing a solar electric system on Forrest and Mary’s Foretravel motorhome.  They wanted to see our bus so we all walked back to our site.  Butch walked up and joined us and we had a long chat.  Several folks walked by and were very friendly which help mitigate our first impressions of the place.

While we were standing there the man who parked us yesterday drove by in his golf cart and also stopped to chat.  He and his wife have been coming to RoVer’s Roost since 2004 and help manage the park.  With the co-op you obtain a leasehold on a specific lot which is then yours to use until you move to a different lot or sell your leasehold.  The lots are not deeded; your leasehold buys you a fractional ownership of the co-op.  Leaseholds are currently $8,500 with a $500 annual maintenance fee, and many leaseholders are full-timers; their RV is the only home they have.  Under $10K for a place to live plus $500 in association fees and metered electric is not bad.  In the last few years many of the original residents, who built the park, have given up their RV’s for assisted living or passed away.  At the present time there are a few lots available and, for the first time in the park’s history, there is no waiting list.  The hope is that a new generation of retirees will discover the Escapees RV Club and the Rainbow Parks and SKP co-ops.

RoVer’s Roost is an odd place when you first see it, a kind of “RV oasis” in the dessert.  It’s a compact, low-walled, compound surrounded by endless miles of nothing; no housing, no industry, not even agriculture.  It turns out that such places are not uncommon in the southwest but it got me wondering why it was built here and why it was built this way.  I presume the reason for the location had to do with climate, land costs, and the willingness of local, county, and state agencies to allow it.

We learned that some of the reasons RoVer’s Roost is built the way it is had to do with it being the first SKP CO-OP and when it was built.  Construction began in 1981 and Escapees RV Club Founders Joe and Kay Peterson helped build it with their own hands and had a lot there for a while.  RV’s over 35 feet long were rare in those days.  Although 40 foot highway buses existed, such as the Eagle, and some were already being converted into motorhomes, many conversions were based on the 35 foot Flxible and GMC buses.  Pull-behinds (trailers and 5th wheels) were rarely longer than 30 feet, although there were exceptions.  The size of the lots, the width of the roads, and the tightness of the turns all reflect the RV realities of the time and provide a living example of how difficult it is to see into the future.

Another reason, I presume, had to do with the costs associated with building RoVer’s Roost.  Even if the cost of the land was negligible, doubling the size of each lot would have at least doubled the cost of the infrastructure.  Roads, electrical wire, fresh water pipes, sewer lines, and the perimeter wall would all have involved at least double the material and the associated cost.  The visit to RoVer’s Roost reminded me that I need to carefully consider the historical context of something before I can hope to understand it.

We targeted 10 AM as our departure time, but there was no urgency to our leaving as we had less than 180 miles to get to our winter home in Quartzsite.  Butch discovered the digital dashboard on the Rand-McNally RVND 7710 last night and called to let me know how to access it.  I vaguely recalled that it was there, having been to several seminars on the unit, but I had not developed the habit of using it.  I decided I would try it out on this last leg of our journey to “Q.”  One of its features is the display of elevation.  On the downside, it does not display the current posted speed limit, which is shown on the map view.

We prepared the coach for travel and I fired up the engine at 10 AM.  Linda watched to make sure I did not hit anything as I pulled out.  Once I was out of our site (#77) I drove to the end of the street and around the corner to a spot where we could hookup the car, which Linda drove down and positioned behind the bus.  I shut off the engine while we hooked up as the park is posted as a “No Idle Zone.”  Several residents stopped to chat and all of them were very nice, wished us a safe journey, and invited us back.  After a less than 100% positive experience yesterday when we arrived and registered we were feeling very good about the park by the time we left.  That, however, did not change the fact that the park design is only marginally usable by a 40 foot highway bus, and not really a good choice for an overnight stay as they do not have any pull-through sites.

Butch and Fonda pulled out of their spot about 15 minutes after us and by 10:30 AM had their car hooked up and were ready to roll.  We pulled out in the lead and 1.5 miles later pulled back onto westbound I-8.  We exited I-8 34 miles later near Gila Bend and got on a connecting road leading to AZ-85.  We came to a split and were not sure where the GPS intended to take us as it told us to turn left which would have put us on AZ-85 southbound whereas the signs clearly showed that AZ-85 N to I-10 was a turn to the right.  Linda was double checking on her phone what we needed to do.  We went to the right and that turned out to be correct.

The 39 mile run up AZ-85 to I-10 was a 4-lane divided highway, although the road surface was a bit rough initially.  When we left I-10 for I-8 at Casa Grande yesterday the signage indicated that I-8/AZ-85 was the designated bypass route to get around Phoenix.  Once we rejoined I-10 westbound there was noticeably more traffic even though we were already 70 miles west of Phoenix.  The traffic eventually spaced out and we finished the 180 mile trip easily while enjoying the other-worldly scenery of the deep Southwest U. S.

We climbed over several small mountain ranges and stopped briefly at a rest area.  We climbed over one last mountain range, reaching an elevation of ~1,600 feet ASL (on the RVND 7710 dashboard display), and finally saw the valley where Quartzsite sits at the bottom nestled against the next mountain range to the west.  We then dropped 700 plus feet over the next 12 miles on a gradual but constant grade.  As we descended and neared Quartzsite we saw the first RV’s parked on the BLM land south of the highway, which was very exciting.

In spite of studying satellite images I did not have a good picture in my mind of what I was now seeing.  I did not expect the mountains to the east and west of town and I did not expect vegetation.  I thought this area would be a vast expanse of flat, barren, sun baked desert.  What lay before us was much nicer than that and we could see immediately why RVers have come here for years and returned year after year.

There are two exits for Q, one at either end of Main Street (B-10) which parallels I-10 on the north side.  We took the second (west most) exit as that is where the Pilot Truck Stop is located.  We both topped up our tanks and then pulled out of the way to disconnect our cars.  We had 5/8ths of a tank but I wanted to add biocide and top it off to eliminate as much air as possible.  With changes in temperature moisture in the air (in the fuel tank) can condense out.  Water in the fuel then contributes to the growth of algae.  I wanted to prevent that since we will be sitting for almost three months.  I will run our fuel polishing pump as well, but the biocide and full tank will really help prevent fuel problems.

Butch had already called Jim (Joe’s brother) and he drove over to escort us back to Joe and Connie’s property.  We made a little caravan with two buses and two cars following him there.  I really did not know what Quartzsite would be like.  My first impression was that it was a combination of the world’s largest RV rally with the world’s largest flea market.  There are RV’s everywhere, and stuff for sale everywhere else.  It is not an “upscale” place, but it is not trashy and rundown either.  It’s a little funky and a bit alternative, a kind of 1960s meets the old west vibe, and I think it will be a great home base for the winter.

Joe and Connie’s property is on a small side street in the NNW part of the city.  Butch pulled in first and I waited in the street while Jim got him backed into their spot facing due south.  Jim then directed me into a spot parallel to the fence on the north property line facing east, which is how I had hoped we would be parked.  It was much easier to get into than Butch and Fonda’s spot.  Fonda and Linda pulled the cars in and parked them after I was out of the way.  The property was smaller than I thought it would be from the satellite images, but large enough, and nicer looking than I expected as well.  There was one motorhome here already, an older Country Coach, and it turns out that they will be the only other rig here.  The owners had gone home for Christmas unexpectedly and will be back around January 1st.

We were pointing slightly up hill so I initially raised the rear end rather than drop the front.  To get level, however, I still needed to drop the front and the Level Low system once again failed to respond.  I checked the pneumatic solenoid valves in the bay under the driver’s seat but nothing seemed to be amiss.  I switched the selector valve in the cockpit between its various positions and the front finally responded.  I have replacement parts for one pneumatic solenoid valve but I am now wondering if the problem might be the selector switch?  I have not checked the maintenance manual but I presume this is a strictly electrical switch that determines which pneumatic solenoid valve the “up/down” rocker switch controls.  I presume the rocker switch is working correctly as it controls the left rear and right rear leveling valves and puts the suspension in driving mode without difficulty.

The easiest/cheapest fix is the pneumatic solenoid valve, unless that turns out not to be the problem.  The next easiest fix is probably replacing one or both Norgren valves in the bay because they are somewhat accessible.  I know the cost of those valves, so it is both a more expensive and more involved repair, especially if it turns out to be unnecessary.  I have no idea what the selector switch costs and it appears to be in a difficult location to service, but if that is the problem then that is what has to be repaired.  There are several possibilities besides the pneumatic solenoid valve.  It’s possible that the selector switch connections for controlling the front height control valve have become marginal and intermittent.  It’s also possible that the switch itself is failing and needs to be replaced.  Another possibility is the electrical connections at the solenoid.  Whatever it turns out to be it won’t be the first marginal/intermittent thing we have found on the bus.

I eventually got it leveled, and having the rear end raised and the front end lowered is not a bad thing as it makes it easier to get in/out of the front door and provides more clearance under the utility bay for the dump hose.  We will be in this spot for the next 12 months, except possibly for a few days in February to attend an informal gathering of a few members of our FMCA Freethinkers Chapter at the Peg Leg Monument near Anza-Borrego State Park in Southern California.  We will leave Quartzsite in early March for the Escapade rally in Tucson, Arizona.

Once I had the coach leveled I shut off the engine and went through my arrival routine.  When I went to connect the shorepower cord I discovered that we only had a “30 Amp” RV service.  A “30 Amp” service is just that; a single 120 VAC connection (line, neutral, ground) protected by a single pole 30 Amp circuit breaker (on the line).  A “50 Amp” RV service, by comparison, is two 120 VAC lines (180 degrees out of phase) with a shared neutral and a ground.  The two lines are protected by a 50 Amp double pole circuit breaker and are actually a 240 VAC, 50 Amp service.  However, in most RV’s each line (leg) is used as a 120 VAC, 50 Amp service in conjunction with the neutral, so a “50 Amp” RV connection is actually used as a 120 VAC, 100 Amp service.  That’s over three times the power of a “30 Amp” RV service.

We can manage on a 30 Amp service—we have before—especially if we do not have to run the air-conditioners.  Our air conditioners are not working at present anyway, but we do not expect to need them while we are here, so that will help.  We cannot use the Gaggenau cooktop, as it is a 240 VAC device, but that’s OK too.  Linda prefers to use the portable induction cooker anyway; it is more efficient and doesn’t heat up the coach.  Still, operating our coach on a 30 Amp service requires much more conscious management of our electrical usage and is thus a tad inconvenient.  On the other hand, our electricity is metered so we pay for what we use.  Having a 30 Amp service inherently limits how much electricity we can use.

Many (most) circuit breakers will only carry 80% of their rating on a continuous basis so we effectively have 24 Amps available to run things.  That’s not a lot of power for a large, “all electric” coach.  I adjusted the “AC Input” setting on the Magnum 4024 inverter/charger to 25 Amps before turning the power on.  The unit limits the amount of current it uses to charge the house batteries to a percentage of that setting.  Setting it to 25 Amps instead of 30 Amps gave us a bit more cushion to run other devices while the batteries were charging.  Once they are fully charged I will dial this back up to 30 Amps.

I joined Linda, Butch, Fonda, and Jim and introduced myself to Connie.  Joe and Connie own this place but Joe was not here today.  He ended up in the hospital being treated for a scorpion sting and is now recovering in a care facility for a week.  By his own admission he was careless; he took a pair of shoes out of a closet he had not worn in a year and put them on without checking to see if something had taken up residence therein.  Not being from the desert southwest this would not even have occurred to us.  We know there are snakes, scorpions, and other “things” here, but this scorpion was in their park model trailer living in a shoe in their closet just 60 feet from our bus.  That certainly served as a heads up for us.

After chatting for a while I finished hooking up the water softener to the water supply and the coach.  We had about 1/2 tank when we arrived and I brought the level up to 2/3rds.  Butch had some test strips so we used one to check the hardness of the water.  It showed 25 grains per gallon (gpg), the highest mineral content it could indicate.  Our portable water softener has a capacity in grains which determines how much water it can soften before it needs to be recharged.  A “1,000 grain” water softener will only treat 40 gallons of 25 grain hardness water (1,000 / 25 = 40) whereas it will treat 100 gallons of 10 grain hardness water (1,000 / 10 = 100).

Butch and Fonda have a 10,000 grain portable water softener but the information we got with ours did not include the grain capacity.  Our softener is similar in size to theirs so I can probably safely assume that it has at least a 7,500 grain capacity.  Given the hardness of the water here that means it can treat about 300 to 400 gallons before needing to be recharged.  Our fresh water tank holds approximately 125 gallons.  If we use most of the water before refilling it we will need to recharge the water softener after every third filling.

Recharging (regenerating) the water softener is simple and inexpensive but takes a little time.  The filter is removed from the housing and the housing filled with crushed salt.  Water is allowed to flow very slowly through the salt and then through the softener and onto the ground.  When the salt is gone the unit is recharged.  If this seems wasteful of water it is, in fact, how almost all water softeners work.  The advantages of softened water are worth the little bit of added water use, especially since we have an Aqua-Hot hydronic heating system that specifies the use of softened water for optimum performance and reduced maintenance.

Rain had been in the forecast all day and we finally started to get an occasional drop so I closed up the bay doors and went inside.  Once we were settled in Linda sent a TXT message to our children letting them know we had arrived.  She attached a photo she took on her camera of our coach in situ.  I took a few photos on mine and TXT’d one to Chuck to let him know we were finally here.  I then laid down on the sofa and took a nap.  I eventually woke up to the sounds and smells of dinner being prepared.  Linda made a very yummy crushed lentil curry and opened a bottle of Barefoot Pinot Noir.  It was a bit dry for my taste but she enjoyed it.  It’s a good life.

The view to west (towards Lollipop Ln) from the east end of our "camp."  Our coach is to the right with the awning out.

The view to west (towards Lollipop Ln) from the east end of our “camp.” Our coach is to the right with the awning out.

Storm clouds gathered and shrouded the mountains to the west but all we got was light rain; nothing like the weather that swept through the Pacific coast from Los Angeles up into Oregon.  Not that far north of us Las Vegas, Nevada, got rain, ice, and snow.

After dinner Linda signed-in to RVillage and updated our location.  She indicated that we were not in an RV park as we are on private, non-commercial property that is not, and should not, be in the RVillage (AllStays) database.  I will check tomorrow to see if the website shows us other Villagers in and around the Q.

I checked the house batteries at 9:45 PM.  They were at 25.6 VDC drawing 0 Amps and showed “Full Charge” even though the BMK showed the SOC at 95%.  Like our stay in Alvarado I suspect the SOC will be back up to 100% in a couple of days.  I made note of the readings and headed to bed.  It was good to finally be here and we are looking forward to an interesting, pleasant, productive, and enjoyable winter.

 

2014/09/01 (M) A Day To Labor

One of the odd things about being “retired” is that holidays, like weekends, do not have the same significance they had when we were employed full time.  We no longer have “3-day weekends.”  We also do not have a tradition in our family of gathering on the summer holidays, so those days tend to blend into the days around them.  If not for our Saturday morning ham radio breakfast and the Sunday morning Howell Farmers Market we probably would not know what day of the week it was.

Knowing that today was Labor Day, Linda prepared vegan cinnamon rolls yesterday and baked them first thing this morning.  This was the first time she has made these and they were a real treat. Vegan, yes; whole plant-based food, not exactly.  These will be a rare treat for us.

As has been my pattern for the last few weeks, I sanded and touched up drywall first thing after breakfast.  Most of the drywall compound was finally smooth enough that I felt it was ready to prime.  I discovered that I was out of primer, so I went to Lowe’s to get some and picked up a few other things while I was there.  It was very humid today, which tends to slow the drying of paint, but primer is thinner than paint and gets absorbed into the paper drywall covering   I was hopeful that I might get a first coat of paint applied this evening.

Mike (W8XH) sent an e-mail Saturday evening to the members of the SLAARC announcing the availability of the new WordPress website and indicating that they would each be receiving a unique username and password from me in the next few days.  I wanted to wait at least 24 hours before I started creating users.  That waiting period had passed, so today I parked myself in front of my computer and registered users.

Part of the registration process required me to create a username.  That was easy for a ham radio club as (almost) everyone has an FCC call sign.  It also required a valid/unique e-mail address.  When I created an account an e-mail, with their username and a randomly generated password, got sent to the e-mail address I entered.  The e-mail also contained instructions on how to get to the website, how to login, and how to change their password.  I finished creating the last user account around 9 PM, but I did not work on this between 5 PM and 8 PM.

The vegan cinnamon rolls made for a filing and somewhat higher calorie breakfast, so we skipped lunch today and had an early dinner.  I had requested a picnic type of meal to celebrate the end of the summer tourist season, and Linda fixed a nice one.  We had vegan potato salad, corn-on-the-cob, and pan-grilled tofu slices with BBQ sauce and caramelized onions served open-faced on some of the Italian bread she made for dinner on Saturday.  Dessert was watermelon balls.  And the wonderful thing is that I am maintaining a good weight.  Eating well and eating healthy are not mutually exclusive.  However, like low-fat and fat-free foods, and then gluten-free foods, the processed food industry has discovered a “market” for foods that are free of animal products.  That, however, does not mean they are free of unpronounceable chemicals or excessive amounts of sugar and salt.  There is a growing amount of vegan junk food available in the marketplace.

We spent a little time after dinner on the back deck watching wildlife as a storm front approached from the west.  As the wind kicked up we lost our AT&T DSL connection and then our phone went out, exhibiting the same behavior we have had throughout most of August.  I shut down my computer and changed back into my work clothes to do some painting.  I put a coat of paint on the east wall of the garage and both the inside and outside of the utility closet.  It started raining really hard so I had to close the garage door, which cut down on my light, but eventually the rain let up and I was able to open the garage doors again.  The inside of the utility closet may need another coat, but I think that most of the outside of the closet, and the east wall of the garage, may be done.  That means I can finally mount the thermostat for the garage furnace and put cover plates back on switches and outlets.

I am still working on the outside of the south wall of the utility closet (with the door).  I am using drywall compound to create a smooth transition at the hinge edge of the door to correct for a carpentry error I made when installing the door much earlier in the project.  The transition will make it possible for me to install trim around the door, but I have to build up the transition in thin, tapered layers, allow it to dry, sand it smooth, and repeat the process over, and over, and over.  Ditto for the west wall of the library, which is the other side of the east wall of the garage, where I am building up a slightly recessed area where the opening was for the old window A-C unit so it will blend in with the surrounding wall surface.

2014/06/09 (M) Mobile Service

One of the interesting things about RVing is the availability of mobile service providers.  The mechanic who maintains our bus chassis, Joe Cannarozzi, travels all over the U. S. from his base in Chicago, Illinois.  Other vendors, many full time RVers themselves, travel the RV rally circuit providing on-site service.  We stopped by Phoenix Paint late in the morning to visit with Michele Henry, who painted our motorcoach in 2011/12, and met Darin Hathaway there.  Darin is an independent Elkhart-based factory trained/authorized Aqua-Hot service technician.  Our Aqua-Hot has not been running well the last few of times we have tried to use it, even failing to ignite once and producing copious amounts of white smoke for as long as five minutes if/when it did.  I described the symptoms we’ve experienced and what we have done to try and diagnose the situation.  Darin had time in his afternoon schedule to service our unit so we arranged to have him come over to Elkhart Campground to do the work there.

Darin arrived around 2:15 PM and performed the standard annual maintenance / tune up.  He let me watch and ask questions and I learned a bit more about the unit and how it functions.  He removed the burner and then removed the swirl chamber which had a buildup of carbon soot.  He removed the nozzle, flame sensor (photo eye), igniter electrodes, and the photo (mounting) disk.  He also noticed a small inline final fuel filter that needed to be replaced.  He clamped off the lines, removed it, and installed a new one.  I wanted a spare, but he only had the one with him so he said he would order one for me.

He disconnected the two main electrical harnesses, plugged in his service control box, and then installed a pressure gauge into the nozzle port.  He activated the fuel pump and the fuel pressure was just over 160 PSI.  It was supposed to be 145 PSI so he showed me the adjustment screw and backed it down to the proper level.

The photo disk was slightly wrapped which is not unusual, but could prevent it from sealing the combustion chamber, so he installed a new one showing me how to make sure it was loose enough that it could position itself correctly when the main blower/pump housing was re-installed.  I got a second disk to keep as a spare.  He installed a new nozzle and then reinstalled the two igniter electrodes and showed me how to set the spark gap.  He also pointed out that the cable clamp on top of the main blower/pump housing is the spark gap tool.  Nice touch.  He said the old nozzle was a bit loose which might have allowed a little fuel to get into the combustion chamber without going through the nozzle.  His tips for nozzle installation were to always use two wrenches and to tighten the nozzle, back it off, and tighten it a second time.  Apparently this helps the threads seat and seal.

He checked the four rubber grommets around the housing and said they were still in good shape and probably relatively new.  I got four for spares, two lefts and two rights.  I might as well get parts while I can.  He cleaned up the swirl chamber and re-installed it, seam side up.  Very important.  He checked the spark igniter and it worked and then failed.  He spent some extra time that was not part of the routine service diagnosing and fixing this issue.  He thought it might be a marginal or failed coil, but after tightening the wire connections and flexing the wires a bit, it seemed to work fine with repeated testing.  The coils are relatively expensive and decided not order one as a spare at this time.  Hopefully I don’t regret that decision somewhere done the road.

With critical components replaced, and everything cleaned and adjusted, Darin inspected the main combustion chamber for signs of fuel or coolant leakage but did not see anything out of the ordinary.  He secured the main blower/pump housing to the combustion chamber / “boiler” assembly using a short quarter-inch socket ratchet with a 12″ extension and suggested that I do the same.  Apparently it is very easy to over-torque these bolts and break the mounting tabs, which is a very bad thing to do.  A final test resulted in the unit starting up immediately with clean exhaust; no smoke, black or white.

We spent a few more minutes trying to determine which thermostats in the house (there are three) controlled which of the three circulating pumps, but did not figure it out.  The is important because the radiator for the water bay (where the Aqua-Hot is installed) is clearly part of one of the coolant circulation loops controlled by one of the thermostats in the house (the leftmost of the three at the top).  The radiator for the front bay is also part of one of the house loops but I do not know if it is tied in with the water bay radiator or with a different zone.  Darin said there was usually a separate thermostatically controlled zone for the bays, but I assured him that our coach was not configured that way.  Our unit does have a forth circulation pump that is tied in with the main engine coolant.  It can be used to pre-heat the engine or to provide heat from the engine to the coach.  Darin indicated that anytime the burner is lit one of the circulation pumps will be running, usually the middle one.  In our unit it seemed to be the engine pre-heat pump, but I later discovered that I had the pump turned on.

It was after 3:30 PM by the time Darin was finished and I had a 4:00 PM conference call meeting of the FMCA national education committee.  We turned the diesel burner on from its normal control switch and let it run for one complete cycle while he finished up the paperwork.  As the cycle finished I saw a little white smoke in the bay, which was still open.  I opened the door to the small compartment underneath the Aqua-Hot and it was full of white smoke.  I have the battery for the fuel polishing module installed in there but the compartment us otherwise empty save for a large diameter tube (5″?) that runs from the bottom of the Aqua-Hot through the compartment, and out the floor.  This tube provides fresh air to the combustion chamber and also provides a conduit for the exhaust pipe.  There was obviously a double problem:  1) exhaust gas was leaking from the exhaust pipe somewhere, and 2) the large outer tube was not sealed.  Add that to the project list.

I called in to the FMCA national education committee meeting at 4:00 PM and by 4:10 PM (EDT) we had enough members for a quorum.  Committee chair Gaye Young worked us through the agenda and we were done with our first meeting an hour after we started.  The committee is charged with looking at four topics, one of which is RVillage.

We had a quiet evening and had pan-grilled tofu with caramelized onions and bar-b-que sauce for dinner, followed by a final stroll around the campground.  We got online with the campground WiFi via our WiFi Ranger and took care of e-mail, RVillage, and WordPress tasks before turning in for the evening.

 

2014/04/23 (W) Lincoln Birthplace

We were going to visit Bowling Green, Kentucky today but decided to put that off until tomorrow.  The overnight temperature dipped down into the low 40’s, and only rose to 66 degrees F for a high, but it was a clear sunny day and we decided to explore the area NNE of our campground.  This is the area of Kentucky where Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States of America, was born and spent his early childhood.

Entrance sign to the ALBNHP in Hodgenville, Kentucky.

Entrance sign to the ALBNHP in Hodgenville, Kentucky.

We left around 10:30 AM and took KY-70 to US-31E and headed north towards Hodgenville.  Just south of Hodgenville was the entrance to the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park (ALBNHP).  Admission was free.  In typical NPS fashion, the Visitor Center had excellent displays and a theater running a well made 15 minute documentary on Lincoln’s birth and early life.  And yes, one of the displays was “Lincoln Logs,” one of my favorite childhood toys.  One of the things we learned from the film was the difference between pioneers, like Daniel Boone, who forged trails into the Kentucky wilderness, and frontiersman, like Abe’s parents, who followed the pioneers and settled at the edge of the expanding nation.

Lincoln’s ancestors, as recently as his grandparents, had been true pioneers, coming through the Cumberland Gap with the likes of Daniel Boone, but his parents were not.  When he was born on February 12, 1809 his parents had already purchased Sinking Spring farm and were working the land like many other families in the area.  Although they lived in a one room log cabin typical of the region at that time, Lincoln’s father, Thomas, was in the top 20% of taxpayers in the county.  Frontier life was hard and uncertain but Lincoln was not born into poverty.

From the Visitor Center a trail lead out around behind the building and gently climbed to the top of a hill where the Lincoln Centennial Monument is located.  The cornerstone was laid by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1909 and the completed monument was dedicated by President Taft.  Fifty-six granite steps, one for each year of Lincoln’s life, led up to the Monument from the Sinking Spring.

The monument houses a one room log cabin believed, at the time of the monument’s construction, to be the actual Lincoln family cabin where Abraham was born.  It was eventually established, many years later, that Lincoln was not born in this cabin as the trees used for the timbers first grew almost 40 years later.  The cabin, however, is absolutely authentic and representative of the design, materials, and building techniques used in the region at the time of Lincoln’s birth, and is now preserved in a climate-controlled building.  Over the years the cabin has become a treasured icon representing the moment and point of origin of the man many believe was the greatest leader the nation has ever had.

When Lincoln was only two years old his parents lost Sinking Spring in an ownership dispute and moved about eight miles northeast, up what is now US-31E, and rented a 30 acre farm on Knob Creek.  The site is now the Lincoln Boyhood Home Unit of the ALBNHP.  Lincoln said many years later that his first childhood memories were from the Knob Creek homestead.  He only had two years of formal schooling and they occurred while his family lived at Knob Creek.

It is known that Abe and his older sister, Sarah, walked two miles (one way) from Knob Creek to the schoolhouse in Atherton.  It was not uphill both ways but it was, apparently, a difficult journey for them.  Lessons were done by recitation as there were no writing supplies.  Abraham, however, was reportedly fascinated by letters and taught himself to write.  The two years that he attended this school were the only formal schooling he ever received.

Also of note from this time and place in Lincoln’s life was the existence of slavery and his family’s involvement with the strongly anti-slavery local Baptist church.  Although Lincoln’s association with Indiana, Illinois, Washington, D.C. and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania is undoubtedly better known it was clear from our visit that the region and circumstances of his birth and earliest years were the clay out of which his adult character was ultimately molded.  However, once his parents moved across the Ohio River to Indiana, again because of an ownership dispute with the Knob Creek farm, it appears that Abe never returned to the place of his birth.

While we were walking along Knob Creek we noticed a group of butterflies gathered on the ground busily engaged in something.  Only after we got back to our coach was Linda able to identify them as Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterflies.  The behavior we observed was “puddling” in which the males (primarily) gather in groups to extract sodium ions and amino acids from damp or muddy soils and gravel.  Those were precisely the conditions we found along the edge of the creek.

We met a couple from Chicago in the parking lot who were staying in Bardstown, on up US-31E to the northeast, and suggested that it was worth the drive.  Along the way we saw the sign for the Abbey at Gethsemani, a Trappist Monk monastery, so we took KY-246 to the monastery entrance.  Descended from the monasteries of St. Benedict (ca. 1177) this was a Cistercian order of monks.  The grounds and buildings were beautiful, simple, and serene, as you would expect from a place devoted to a life of worship, contemplation, and simple manual labor.  The Visitor Center and gift shop featured items made by these and other monks to support their way of life. A small theater showed an informative 20 minute film about life at the monastery.  Unfortunately for us the monks at this Abbey make cheese and fudge, neither of which we eat.

We continued on to Bardstown and found a place to park on the traffic circle surrounding the building that houses the visitor center and county offices.  Bardstown is an old (late 1700’s) but happening city, the largest we have visited since arriving at Cave Country RV CG.  The region around Bardstown is the center of the Kentucky Bourbon industry.  Barton’s 1792 Bourbon distillery is located on the south edge of town and Maker’s Mark distillery is only 16 miles to the southeast.  We Googled Whiskey vs. Bourbon and found out that Bourbon IS whiskey, but made to very specific criteria.  Bourbon is made mostly from corn mash and comes only from the U. S.; mostly from Kentucky.  Scotch is whiskey made in Scotland.  Irish whiskey is whiskey made in Ireland.  There are lots of subtle variations on this, but that’s the gist of it.

We checked out The Talbott Tavern, which dated from 1796 and is still in operation.  We would have loved to have lunch or dinner in this authentic and quaint setting, but our only menu option would have been a salad, so we strolled through town instead.  There were many old houses dating from 1790 – 1820, and the commercial buildings on the streets around the circle were mostly pre Civil War.  Crume drug store had been in continuous operation for over 150 years.

We headed back towards Cave City on US-31E but rather than retrace our route we took KY-84 west just south of Hodgenville and then headed south on KY-357 to Munfordville.  Along the way we stopped at an IGA and bought a bag of Romaine salad greens and a couple bottles of water.  We picked up US-31W in Munfordville and followed it south through Horse Cave to Cave City where we took KY-70 back to Cave Country RV Campground.

For dinner Linda pan-fried firm tofu slices (~1/2″ thick) with onions until caramelized, added a sweet bar-b-que sauce, and served it open-faced on some whole wheat hot dog buns we still had.  A simple green salad and small glass of sangria made it a meal.  Afterwards Linda read while I worked on this post and edited photographs of our visit to the land of Lincoln’s birth.

 

2013_10_24 (F) 50/50

We were up early this morning as Linda had to go to the bakery today.  I stopped by the post office on my way to Williamston and arrived around 9:15 AM.  Joe was already working on the coach and I got busy working on some small items.  I needed some WD-40 and neither of us had any, so it was off to the store.  As long as I was out I picked up coffee at Panera.  Yum.

No, today was not a 50/50 raffle, although those seem to be regular features of large RV rallies and ham radio meetings.  Today was a day of even odds as to whether new parts would solve some nagging bus problems.  As of the end of the work day the score was parts 0, problems 2.  That doesn’t mean the day was wasted, not at all.  We have a new governor (pressure regulator/controller) on the main engine air compressor and a new speedometer sensor on the transmission.  We also had a new hub gasket on the driver-side drive axle and dynamic wheel balances on all six positions.  The chassis had been lubed, the side-view mirrors had been tightened, the entrance door latches were tightened, and the passenger-side engine compartment door latch assembly was lubricated, as were all of the bay key locks.  That’s a lot of stuff taken of.

The auxiliary air system, however, still bled down quickly to just under 100 PSI each time the air-dryer purged and then slowly built up pressure to 130 PSI and the repeated the cycle.  I called Joe as soon as I got home to let him know.  He called someone that he relies on for advice and was told that it was most likely the unloader valve in the head of the air compressor.  The valve is not an expensive part, but replacing it requires a lot of labor.  The air compressor is bolted to the transmission end of the main engine block and the head is tied in to the engine cooling system, so not only is it difficult to get to (in a bus), the coolant (antifreeze) has to be drained at least to the point where the air compressor head is empty so it can be removed without making a huge mess.  Ugh.

As for the transmission speed sensor, the speedometer continued its bizarre, random behavior as I drove.  It stayed at zero (0) MPH when I first started driving, as it usually does, then jumped around erratically independent of vehicle speed, then decided to sit at 85 MPH (maximum on the gauge) regardless of vehicle speed, and then jumped around a bit up there.  It never did settle in to the correct speed on the whole trip back.  In other words, exactly what it was doing before we changed the sensor.  Ugh, ugh.  But at least we know the problem is somewhere else.

Chuck drove out to Williamston from Novi and arrived just before 1:00 PM.  Joe needed to test drive the 2002 Prevost XL LeMirage he’d been working on, so he drive the three of us to lunch in it.  That was the first time I had ridden in an XL and the first time I had ridden in a converted coach powered by a Detroit Diesel Series 60 engine.  The ride was very nice and the engine obviously had a lot of torque.  The thing I noticed most, however, was how quiet it was without windshield and door gasket air leaks.

While Joe finished the front end work I finished putting trim back on the wheels, packed up my tools, and reloaded the car and the bays.  With all of the work done, Joe guided me out of the garage and I pulled around into the driveway where I could hook up the car without blocking anyone.  Eventually there was nothing left to do but pay Joe and leave, so that’s what I did.

Centramatic dynamic wheel balancer on driver-side front wheel.

Centramatic dynamic wheel balancer on driver-side front wheel.

I got back to house late afternoon, got the car unhooked, unloaded the bus and the car, stripped the bed, and started a load of laundry.  Retirement may mean that someone else fixes your bus, but it doesn’t mean that some else does your laundry.

I did not get a chance to winterize our coach while it was in Williamston.  Overnight low temperatures have been dropping down near freezing, and were forecast for the upper 20’s tonight.  The living area in the coach will stay above freezing just from retained heat and the heat put out by the refrigerator, but I was less sure about the bays.  There are still water lines in the front bay from the old combo washer/dryer so I turned on the electric bay heater.  The water tank bay does not have an electric heater, which I thought was odd, until I realized the Aqua-Hot is in test bay and has an electric heating element, so I turned that back on as well.

Linda left the bakery around 5:00 PM, which put her in the middle of the afternoon rush.  I’m not sure why it’s called rush hour since traffic mostly moves slowly or not at all.  While on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia last week we were reminded of similar reversals, made famous by George Carlin, such as why we drive on Parkways and park on driveways.  And we wonder why non-native speakers gave trouble with English?  I sat on the couch and worked on this blog posting and Juniper (our female cat) curled up beside and went to sleep; very unusual for her.  We had a heavy downpour of rain and sleet that lasted for 20 minutes, but Linda finally made it home at 6:37 PM.

Dinner was pan grilled onions and extra firm tofu slices in Bar-B-Que sauce served on a whole wheat bun with a mixed green salad, a few Tostitos whole grain dipping chips, salsa, and a small glass of white wine.  The odds of that being a really tasty meal were much higher than 50/50.  Simple yet simply delicious.