Tag Archives: Sunseed Food CO-OP (Cocoa Beach FL)

2016/04/06-10 (W-N) Close Call All’s Well

2016/04/06 (W) Near Disaster

We were up by 7 AM, anticipating our departure from Jetty Park and the Cape Canaveral / Cocoa Beach area of Florida.  Around 9:30 AM we started straightening up the interior of our motorcoach.  At 10:15 I moved the car over by the office and walked back to our site.  Around 10:30 I disconnected the shorepower cord and stored it for travel.  With the chassis batteries connected, and the engine compartment accessory air supply open, the engine started right up.  After the chassis aired up I raised the tag axle and Linda served as spotter while I eased out of site #357.  I thought I might need to back up to get clear of vehicles and trees but I was able to exit the site in one smooth forward motion.  Linda got onboard and we drove clockwise around Red Knot Circle and over to the dump station by the office.  There is a large paved area around the dump station with room to temporarily park the bus, without blocking any of the vehicles parked there, while we connected the car for towing.  We checked the lights, which were OK, and Linda got onboard.  We pulled out of the campground just after 11 AM and once I cleared the turn out of the campground exit I lowered the tag axle.  I felt a sudden jerk but thought the transmission had shifted.

We headed west on George J. King Blvd. and merged onto FL-A1A westbound.  FL-A1A quickly crossed the Banana River, leaving Cape Canaveral for Merritt Island.  We eventually crossed the Indian River and were back on the mainland.  Somewhere along the way FL-A1A became FL-528 which eventually became FL-528 Toll Road.  Linda was keeping tabs on the temperatures and pressures of all the wheels/tires.  The driver side tag seemed to be running consistent with the others and we settled in for our trip.

FL-528 traverses a large swath of undeveloped land with lots of water and birds.  Traffic was light and the driving was easy so it came as quite a jolt when we got a high temperature alarm on the driver side tag axle tire sensor.  The temperature was in the 160’s and climbing and I started looking for a safe place to pull off the road.  Before I could do that I checked the driver side rear view mirror, and saw smoke coming from the tag axle wheel well.  NOT GOOD!  I pulled off at an entrance ramp to get farther away from the traffic lanes.  I told Linda to get our cats into their carriers and grab our computers from the bed in case we had to abandon ship. While she did that I grabbed the fire extinguisher from behind the driver’s seat and ran back to the smoking tag axle.  I discharged the extinguisher through the small holes in the wheel in an attempt to cool off the disc brake caliper and rotor.  I got the wheel to quit smoking and went back inside to get the other fire extinguisher, just in case.

I left the engine running and started trying to figure out what to do.  My first call was to the Prevost Service Center in Jacksonville, Florida.  They could not help me directly, and their mobile service guy was off today, but the service manager gave me the name of someone to call in the Orlando area.  Long-story-short, I ended up getting passed off to a whole string of people, none of whom could help me but each of whom tried to connect me to someone who could.  No one could provide assistance in-situ and most places would not be able to help us for 1 to 2 weeks, if at all.

I talked to a guy in Cocoa, about 20 miles back the wrong way, who sounded like he could help in a week if we could get the bus there.  I eventually talked to our mobile mechanic, Joe Cannarozzi, who was in Michigan working on a coach near Lansing about 30 miles from our house.  I also called the Prevost Action Service System (PASS).  The Jacksonville service manager was not willing to tell me it was OK to lift the tag axle and drive on six tires but the P.A.S.S. technician thought it would OK as long as I did not drive too far and kept my speed down.  I eventually talked to Barry at JOSAM in Orlando, who could not help us directly but seemed genuinely concerned about our situation.  Barry ultimately put me in touch with John at Action Mobile Service on the south side of Orlando.  Both business were located near the intersection of the FL-528 Toll Road and FL-91 (Florida’s Turnpike).  That intersection was about 15 miles from where we were sitting on the side of the road.  The consensus opinion was that I should be able to complete the relatively short trip of 15 miles by lifting the tag axle and limiting my speed.  By the time I pulled back into the flow of traffic we had been on the side of the road for two hours and were more than a little bit rattled and frustrated.

Limiting my speed on a limited access highway posted at 70 MPH was not without its own risks, but it was (apparently) our only alternative unless we wanted to be put on a “low boy” and towed.  The sooner we got off FL-528 and into someone’s service yard the better.  Traffic was now thicker as it was 1:30 PM but I finally had an opening that was long enough to allow me to get up to 45 MPH without cutting someone off and give other vehicles plenty of time and distance to move over and go around me.  I kept my speed at 45 to 50 MPH, except where posted lower in a construction zone, of course, and kept my emergency flashers on the whole way.

We exited FL-528 at Exit 4.  When I started driving I was headed for JOSAM and Barry had given me a ‘heads up’ about how to navigate Exit 4 as this exit serves a dual purpose.  Staying to the right it immediately becomes an entrance ramp to FL-91 (Florida’s Turnpike) whereas staying left and going straight to the stop sign gets you to a side street that leads to FL-441 / Orange Blossom Trail to the right or to JOSAM to the left.  We were nearing Exit 4 when Barry called back and told us to go to Action Mobile Service.  Exit 4 was also the correct exit for Action Mobile but in the opposite direction from JOSAM.  It was at this point that we had a bit of confusion.

We were both already pretty frazzled by the events of the last few hours and the last minute change in directions did not make things better, especially with Linda handling the phone call and unable to hear well.  We had JOSAM’s address programmed into the Rand-McNally TripMaker RVND 7710 GPS, but that was no longer our destination.  Linda tried to enter the address of Action Mobile Service into the unit but it had become non-responsive.  I checked the power adapter and saw that the light was out so I knew the unit was not getting 12 VDC power and the battery had probably run down.  The adapter often works loose so I plugged it back in but it did not restore the power.  The two bottom outlets share a circuit and the two upper outlets share a different circuit so I plugged the adapter into one of the upper outlets.  I quickly determined that all four of the 12 VDC accessory outlets appeared to be dead and told Linda to stop trying to use the GPS.  She put the address in her phone instead but was having trouble with that as well and was slightly disoriented by this point.

I knew we had turn right at the stop sign because Action Mobile was “in the opposite direction from JOSAM.”  I also knew I needed to get onto Orange Blossom Trail, but was unclear as to just where that was or which way we needed to turn when I found it.  As it turned out I could see a street sign that indicated OBT was the cross street at the traffic signal immediately after we turned right at the stop sign.  We were where we needed to be, but now which way to go?  On a hunch, when the light turned green, I turned right and headed south.  Linda got oriented relative to the GPS/mapping information on her phone and eventually confirmed that we were closing the distance between our current location and destination and thus going in the correct direction on the correct road.  I turned left onto the Central Florida Parkway and then a short distance later turned right onto Satellite Blvd.  Action Mobile was the second business on the right but I pulled up along the curb, making sure I did block any driveways, and walked in to confirm that we were in the right place and find out where they wanted me to put the bus.

We were met by the Service Manager, John Provo, who pointed me to an open area where I could back the bus in and be out of the way.  We unhooked the car and Linda drove it into the yard and parked it near where the bus would end up.  I then swung the bus out into the oncoming traffic lane and made a hard right turn through the gate and into the yard.  (The tag axle was already up, of course.)  I pulled forward and then backed in towards the passenger side with Linda spotting for me.  I put the tag axle down so the drive axle would not have to support the entire weight of the rear end and checked for level.  We were level enough for comfort so I did not bother with leveling.  Once we were parked I went in to talk to John (the service manager, the owner’s name is also John).  He and I looked at the driver side tag wheel/tire and I described what had happened.  Other than the yellow powder from the fire extinguisher there was no visible evidence of what had transpired.

Owner John Douglass was outside talking to someone and Linda ended up talking to him.  In the course of their conversation she found out that his parents owned a house on Runnymeade in the same subdivision where we lived for 35 years.  Not only that, they were there when we were, and John lived with them for a while after trade school (diesel mechanics).  He eventually bought the house from them, again, all while we were there but we did not recall ever meeting.  It really is a small world, after all!

John D. (the owner) introduced us to Bill (the mechanic) who would be handling our repair first thing tomorrow morning.  There wasn’t much else to do at that point except to get comfortable, have a late lunch snack, and check in with “Smitty” (John Smith) at Williston Crossings, Pat/Vickie, Butch, and Chuck while Linda updated our children on the status of our situation.

The last employees left around 5 PM and closed/chained the gate.  We had the code for the lock but the lock was on the outside of the fence.  An employee returned around 6 PM so when he left I went out and put the lock on the inside.  It did not occur to me at the time that employees might have to get in at all hours for emergency road service calls, but I was willing to get up and unlock at whatever hour if needed.

It would be a while until our evening TV programs came on, and we still had plenty of daylight, so I got out my multi-meter to try and diagnose what had happened with the power supply to the four 12 VDC accessory outlets I wired up for powering portable accessories in the cockpit.  The 12 VDC distribution/fuse panel seemed like the obvious place to start.

The 12 VDC distribution/fuse panel is above the entry stairs from the cockpit landing up to the main floor.  It’s an enclosure that is installed against the ceiling and is about 10″ high.  It is in-between the TV box (DS) and the front A-C box (PS) and is about 28″ wide.  It has a door that is 7″ tall by 24″ wide and hinged at the top, opening out from the bottom.  When the door is open the actual opening is, of course, a bit smaller.  The hinges on the door do not hold the door open against the ceiling, so one of the challenges working in this space is keeping the door up and out of the way.  When working alone I usually prop it open but with Linda helping me she was able to hold it open with one hand and hold the multi-meter with the other hand while I handled the probes.  The other challenge is that it is above the stairs and just high enough that I cannot reach it easily without standing on a stool, which is what I did while Linda stood with her right foot on the navigator seat and her left foot on the main floor.  It was probably a strange sight if anyone noticed.

Each circuit has have a number tag on the wire where it connects to the fuse block terminal.  We are fortunate that one of the pieces of documentation we got with the coach lists all of these circuits in numerical order with a description of what it feeds.  I recalled (vaguely?) that I had disabled and/removed some devices a while ago and repurposed the circuits to supply power to the auxiliary outlets.  I found the circuit numbers and checked those and they did not have power.  I traced the problem back to a relay that did not seem to be operating correctly.

I carry spare relays and was going to replace it but discovered, after great difficulty removing the relay from its socket, that my spare relays were slightly different (4-pin instead of 5-pin).  I spent some time considering whether I could use a 4-pin relay, or perhaps just install a jumper wire to bypass it, when I realized that there were a few duplicate wire numbers, and that those duplicates were the very numbers with which I was working.  I checked for 12 VDC on those duplicate circuits and guess what?  No voltage there either.  I pulled one of the automotive style blade fuses and it was open.

I got the parts box with the spare fuses from the car and found a correct replacement.    I checked the other two fuses and they were also open.  They were very small, 2 and 3 A respectively, and I replaced them with 5 A fuses.  After reconnecting a wire (that I had already forgotten I disconnected at the beginning of this process) we finally had power restored to all four outlets, which, as I mentioned earlier, get their power from two different circuits, one for the upper pair and a different one for the lower pair.

We spent the night in Action Mobile’s yard.  Located in a light industrial area just off a major commercial thoroughfare, it was certainly not an RV park, but it was fenced, with barbed wire on top, had a locked gate (for which we had the code), and lots of security cameras.  Satellite Blvd. was surprisingly busy for a side street, with lots of trucks of all sizes and some hot rodders with booming car audio systems.  There was a large food processing plant directly across the street that was brightly illuminated and obviously in production 24 hours a day as there were lots of cars/trucks that left around 7 PM and a larger number that showed up at the same time and parked all along the building.

We had been running on inverters all day and I wanted to make sure the batteries were close to fully charged before we went to bed so I turned on the genset around 7 PM while we watched TV and tried to relax.  I used TVFool.com to locate OTA TV transmitter antennas.  Given that we were on the south edge of Orlando the towers were, not surprisingly, in all directions.  Most of the strongest stations, however, were lined up to our northeast so I pointed the front TV antenna in that direction.  We were able to pick up one of the PBS affiliates and watched a fascinating program of the Vikings; their journeys and reach, and the use of satellite imaging technology to identify possible archeological sites in what is now the Canadian Maritimes.

We had to be up at 5 AM so we were dressed and ready to go at 6 AM which is the time I was told Bill would be arriving.  I set two alarms and we went to bed around 11 PM.

2016/04/07 (R) Crisis Averted

It rained overnight and continued, off and on, this morning.  We were up around 5:15 AM, got dressed, and had bagels and orange juice for breakfast but I did not make any coffee.  Bill (our mechanic) was the first to show up at 6:45 AM.  Since the lock was on the inside of the gate I walked over to make sure he could get it open.  Just before 7 AM an ALSCO truck pulled in.  There were two other ALSCO trucks in service bays and the driver walked over there, came back a short time later, and then drove away.  Bill unlocked the office and then settled in at the outside picnic table.  I realized pretty quickly that nothing was going to happen with our bus until John P. (Service Manager) showed up, but that was OK.  It was a great comfort to be off the road in a safe place where we could sit for quite a while if needed and to know that there was a guy who had the skills and resources to fix our bus sitting were I could see him.  We also had a good feeling about John D. (the owner).

At 7:45 AM I received clearance to move the bus to the last service bay (farthest from the street) and by 8 AM had the engine running and the tag axle up.  Action Mobile Service has seven service bays, only one of which (#1) is inside.  The other six are under a large roof with open sides.  (It’s a Florida thing; you won’t see that in Michigan.)  They wanted me to back into the bay so I had to reposition the bus toward the passenger side, swing the nose to the left and into the entrance gate, straighten out, back down to the bay, and then swing the back end in on the passenger side.  Linda spotted for me, as she always does, and Bill signaled the final positioning.

Our coach at Action Mobile Service in Orlando, FL. awaiting the start of the driver side tag axle brake repair.

We were told yesterday that we would not be able to stay in the coach while Bill worked on it, but Bill said we could.  The difference was that because the tag axle can be lifted they did not need to jack up the bus.  That made for a more comfortable day, both for us and for the cats, and allowed us to be more productive than if we had been confined to the customer lounge.  I spent part of the morning in the customer lounge anyway as I was on the phone with Prevost Parts US in Elgin, Illinois.  I spent most of the rest of the day interacting with Bill and the two Johns.  Linda, however, was able to use her computer in the bus and work on tax returns.

The brake was locked up to where Bill could not turn it by hand but he got the caliper off somehow and then removed the hub and rotor.  I am always interested in how these things are done but figured that Bill, who did not know me, did not need me staring over his shoulder while he worked.  When he finally got everything apart he determined that the brake pads and rotor needed to be replaced, as did the wheel bearings, races, and seals.  The major problem, however, was going to be the disc brake caliper.

This is what a Prevost H3-40 tag axle looks like when it is completely disassembled.

Action Mobile called in Rex from Rush Trucking, a huge national trucking company.  Rex had a heavy duty truck parts business at one time but sold it and went to work for Rush.  He had been in the heavy truck industry for over 30 years and had a lot of expertise and contacts.  He looked at the situation and determined the part numbers for all of the parts Bill needed.  A couple of hours later he showed up with everything, including a rebuilt/remanufactured caliper.  The only thing he could not get was a new torque plate (spider).

We could not determine if a new torque plate was needed but it was a possible cause of brake misalignment.  If we were going to replace it, now was the time as it was completely accessible with the brake and axle hub removed.  Gary at Prevost Parts had spent a lot of time with me during the morning and been especially helpful but I ended up talking to Wes to order the spider.  It’s a phone bank and you usually have to take who you get as you cannot dial a specific person.  You can leave a message and request a callback, but that can take a lot longer than waiting on hold for “…the next available representative.”  They had a left hand spider in New Jersey and I ordered it for overnight delivery to Action Mobile.  It is supposed to be here by 10:30 AM tomorrow morning.

Without the spider Bill could not wrap up the job but he was able to spend the afternoon putting new seals and bearings into the axle hub and mounting the rotor to the hub.  Once the spider arrives, and assuming it is the correct part, he figured it would take 90 minutes to put everything back together.

The new rotor mounted on the hub (just behind the red stool, and the new caliper (upper right behind the cardboard box).

John D. (the owner) said we could leave the bus in the bay overnight.  We got to chatting and I gave him a tour of the inside.  He noticed that we were not running a generator and asked if we were on an inverter.  I confirmed that we were and he offered us the use of a 50 Amp RV outlet that was located by the passenger side rear of the service bay.  It turned out that there was also potable water available if we needed it.

I waited until Bill was done working at 3:30 PM, so as not to interfere with his work, and then got out the shorepower cord and plugged it in.  We do OK on the inverter, and can use everything with the genset running, but the coach is definitely most comfortable and useful when plugged in to shorepower, especially “50 Amp” (240/120 VAC) service.  Although it was warm today, the coach was partly shaded by the bay and we decided not to run the air-conditioners.  With the windows and roof vents open, and the exhaust fans on, our small Duracraft portable fan was sufficient to keep Linda comfortable.

By 5 PM everyone was done for the day and left, locking the gates on the way out.  We had the lock code in case we needed to get out, or let emergency services in, but decided when we first arrived that we would not come and go unless absolutely necessary.

I had a lengthy conversation with Chuck about the status of our brake repair and what I was finding out about Prevost and parts availability in the process.  I also texted some part numbers to Butch so he could pursue possible sources in northern Indiana and southern Michigan.  While I took care of those communications, Linda made salads and a potato lentil curry for dinner.  After dinner I talked to Pat and Vickie for a while and then called Butch and had a long chat with him.  Linda was watching (reading, CC)  our Thursday evening CBS TV programs and when I concluded my call with Butch I settled in to watch TV with her and work on my blog posts for the last several days.

2016/04/08 (F) Brake Away to WCRVR

I set alarms last night for 6:45 AM since Bill starts work at 7 AM and I told him yesterday we would be up and dressed by then and to not hesitate to work in/around our coach.  I made a small pot of coffee and we had orange juice and bagels for breakfast which was made easier by the 50A RV electrical service that John D. had offered us late yesterday.  There wasn’t much of anything Bill could do on our coach until the torque plate (disc brake caliper mounting spider) showed up.  Linda worked at her computer while I worked on blog posts on my iPad.

I eventually put aside my blog work and gathered up some of the boxes the new caliper and other parts were in.  I texted Butch with various part numbers I had been given by Prevost, gotten off of used parts, or copied from labels on boxes.  He called me just before 10 AM to let me know the number on the box label appeared to be the one we needed.  He was in contact with someone at ABC Bus Parts in Muncie, Indiana who was in contact with someone at Meritor.  The information he was getting was that the caliper was not available in stock but I could get it for $1,200 with a 45 – 60 day lead time.  While I was glad to hear that might be the case, it certainly contradicted everything I had been told by Prevost, which I found a bit disturbing.

The UPS truck showed up at 10 AM so I walked up to the office, retrieved the box, and took it back and set it by the driver side tag axle.  I had just talked to Bill at little earlier but he wasn’t around at the moment.  He still wasn’t around at 11 AM so I went to the office to see what was going on.  As I suspected, Bill had to go out on a mobile service call.  John D. (the owner) called Bill and then let me know that he would be back in about 10 minutes.  I made sure everyone knew that I wasn’t trying to create an unnecessary since of urgency or priority for our coach, I just wanted to know what the status was.

The new torque plate (spider) installed on the driver side tag axle. The new caliper is visible lower right. Action Mobile Service, Orlando, FL.

When Bill returned he got right to work and in short order had the new spider mounted.  He then installed the hub, the outer bearing, and axle seal.  The hub gasket and cap were last, after which he added hub oil through the hole in the sight glass portion of the hub.  It takes time for the oil to penetrate the bearings and settle so some patience is required to get the correct oil level.

With the hub installed Bill now had to get the caliper in place.  It’s both heavy and awkward to handle.  It has to be lifted into place, lowered around the rotor, and secured with a pair of large steel slide pins.  The problem is how to hold the caliper in place while getting the upper pin in place.  In order to accomplish that he had another mechanic help him.  He then adjusted the automatic slack adjuster and finally reconnected the air line to the brake “can” (actuator).

I left him alone until he was done and it was a relief to finally see that everything appeared to fit together.  The hub spun with the minimum required drag, but we still had to test the installation.   (The brake pads are always in contact with the rotor.)   To do that I needed to apply and release the brakes but the tag axle was up (lifted) which cuts off the air supply to the brake chambers.

Lowering the tag axle releases the air from the brake chamber that powers the lifting mechanism and at the same time allows air into the air springs that support the weight of the coach on the axle.  It also changes one of the air valves so that application of the brake pedal allows air into the tag axle brake chambers.  I could lower the tag axle, and probably apply the brakes once or twice, with the air stored in the system, but raising the axle back up, and/or additional application of the brakes, would require me to start the engine.  That required a few minutes of my time so Bill decided to take his lunch break.

The hub and rotor reinstalled along with the new caliper, ready for testing. Action Mobile Service, Orland, FL.

While Bill was eating lunch I checked with the two Johns to see if Rex could supply me with another left (DS) caliper and two right (PS) calipers.  They checked with him and he said he could have two of them this afternoon but could not get the third one until Monday.

When Bill was done with lunch I started the engine and lowered the tag axle which caused the driver side rear to drop as the tag wheel/tire was not yet on the hub.  When I applied the brakes Bill was not able to turn the hub and when I released the brake pedal he was able to turn the hub once again.  That was the best test we could do with the bus sitting still and Bill was satisfied that the problem was properly repaired.  Before Bill put the wheel/tire back on he climbed under the bus and greased the passenger side tag axle disc brake caliper.  When he went to put the wheel back on the hub was too low.  With the engine running I tried to raise the driver side rear using the Level Low system but it would not come up high enough.  I tried lowering the front to pivot the tag higher but that did not work either.

Bill found a length of 4″x4″ timber, put it in front of the outside driver side drive tire and had me move the bus forward just enough to roll the tire up onto it.  That raised the tag axle hub enough that he could get the wheel onto the studs and secure it.  As soon as it was on I moved the bus forward a little more until the drive tire was off of the 4×4.  The tag axle brake problem was fixed.  Bill greased the two front/steer disc brake calipers and then checked the oil level in both of those hubs and the passenger side tag axle hub.

Now that I knew the disc brake caliper and spider fit and worked properly I let John D. know that I wanted the three additional calipers.  He let Rex (Rush Trucking) know.  We did not want to hang around Action Mobile in the bus until Monday and given that I would have to come back Monday in the car anyway I indicated that I would pick all three of them up then.

I settled the bill for the repair work.  The amount was substantial but I knew what it was going to be so it wasn’t a surprise.  I also considered it fair and had no problem paying it.  A little over 48 hours before we come dangerously close to having our bus catch on fire and if it had it would have been completely consumed.  In the hours that followed we were faced with the very real prospect that we might not be able to get our bus repaired, effectively rendering it useless as a motorhome.  We even half joked about buying a lot in an RV resort, moving the bus there (towing it if necessary), and becoming Florida residents.  It was a real low point from which Action Mobile restored our plans and dream for a long, adventurous retirement using our motorcoach.

As a separate transaction I paid a 50% deposit on the three brake calipers.  At that point there was nothing left to do except say ‘thank you,’ hook up the car for towing, and leave, but not before calling Williston Crossings and making a reservation.

Linda usually handles the reservation/registration process but with her hearing and voice issues that has become my job, at least temporarily, but hopefully not long-term.  Sometimes we have to Ieave a message and get a callback, but Joann answered the phone this time.  We had decided that we wanted to stay through Tuesday evening and depart on Wednesday morning April 13.  To our surprise there was no pull-through site available for that set of dates.  Site #439 was available, however, and was actually our 1st choice anyway as it is next door to our friends, John (Smiity) and Ali, and is the same site we were on for our entire winter here in 2014.  I made the reservation, which was very easy as the resort still had our information on file.

With our camping arrangements made Linda texted Smitty to let him know we were getting ready to head his way.  I started the bus and pulled it out of the bay and around to the passenger side while Linda spotted for clearance to obstructions.  I pulled up by the office, lined up with the gate, and shut off the engine.  Meanwhile Linda brought the car up behind the bus and we connected it for towing.  We checked that all the lights were working and were ready to go.  We worked our way back the short distance to US-441 / Orange Blossom Trail via Satellite Blvd and the Central Florida Parkway.  From there it was only a little over a mile north to get back to the entrance to FL-91 (Florida’s Turnpike).  We had already studied the route on our iPad Maps app so we knew it was an easy interchange, with all turns to the right.  As long as we stayed to the right we would end up northbound on the Turnpike towards I-75 and Ocala.

Because I wanted to make sure I stayed to the right I ended up going through a manned tollbooth rather than the usual SunPass Only lanes.  The staffed lane was also marked for wide vehicles and was also a SunPass Lane, so it was not a problem.  It only caused a brief moment of confusion as the attendant started counting axles.  I pointed to our transponder but he did not see me and I pulled on through as soon as the electronic sign said “SunPass Accepted.”

Traffic on the Turnpike was not too bad but we did see an electronic information sign shortly after getting on advising of traffic congestion between the FL-301 exit and the I-75 merge.  No surprise there, especially on a Friday afternoon.  I rolled along initially at 62 MPH while Linda kept a close eye on the temperatures of the four wheels/tires that have disc brakes (steer and tag axles).  The DS tag was running hotter than the other wheels by at least 10 degrees F, including the PS tag; not enough to indicate a problem, but given our recent experience and with no meaningful miles on the repair work, we were understandably nervous.  I decided to error on the side of caution and travel at 55 MPH.

Linda checked the temperatures every few minutes for the entire trip.  The steer tires/wheels and the drive tires/wheels eventually settled in to temperatures in the mid-90 degree F range, plus or minus, while the tag tires settled in around 105 degrees F while free-wheeling and got as high as 120 after braking.  The temperatures came back down, however, which was important, and the passenger side was sometimes higher than the driver side, which either meant the driver side was working or the passenger side was starting to fail.  I preferred the former possibility to the later but it wasn’t like I had a choice.

As we were warned, the traffic on the Turnpike slowed to stop-n-go conditions starting at the exit for FL-301.  It remained congested, very slow, and often completely stopped all the way to the merge with I-75 northbound, where it got even worse (if that was possible).  The volume of traffic trying to move north was as astounding as its lack of movement and remained heavy all the way to exit 354 at Ocala where we finally left I-75 and headed northwest on US-27 towards Williston.

Linda had texted several status updates to Smitty and at 5:05 PM texted him again as we turned off of US-27 / Main Street onto NE 5th Street.  I stopped at the turn into the resort and lifted the tag axle before proceeding around the corner.  As I came around and pulled up to the gate Smitty was coming the other way in his golf cart.  We said a quick ‘hello’ and he opened the gate.  I pulled up by the office, which had closed just minutes before, so our bus/car combination was not blocking the incoming traffic lane and shut off the engine.  We unhooked the car and Linda moved it to a temporary parking spot.  John and I discussed how best to get me into the site.  I expressed my preferred approach and he agreed to try it.  I then followed him to the site where Linda was waiting for us.

I learned a lot about how to maneuver this bus two years ago from ‘Big Bill’ Cowick when we were parked next to him and Nancy  at Suncoast Designers in Hudson, Florida.  Smitty got me positioned correctly to start backing up and watched the front end while Linda watched the rear end.  I was able to back it up around the corner of an intersection and angle it towards the site, coming very close to a recently added street sign on the passenger side without hitting it.  Once the right front corner was able to clear the sign I turned the steer tires to the left, tightening the turn as I went, while watching John, Linda, and the concrete pad in my mirrors and rearview camera.  I backed the bus around smoothly onto the pad and then pulled forward once to make sure I was straight and the distance I wanted to be from the driver side edge of the pad.  I then backed up to where the tag axle tires were still fully on the concrete pad with only a foot or so to spare.  That positioned the bus conveniently for utility hookups while leaving plenty of space to open bay doors and lots of room on the passenger side where the patio area is located.  It also created plenty of space in front of the bus for the car, getting it well clear of the road.

Ali and John were already at Jeff and Kathy’s when John drove up to let us in.  With the engine still running and the tag axles still up I checked that both tag axle tires spun freely.  They did, which was very good news, so I lowered the tag axle, leveled the coach, and shut off the engine.  I disconnected the chassis batteries, turned off the auxiliary air to the engine accessories, plugged in the shorepower cord, and made sure the auxiliary air-compressor was turned on.  While I was taking care of all that Linda prepared a few things on the interior, opened windows and ceiling vents, and got a Yuengling lager out of the refrigerator and put it in an insulated cozy for me.  It was time to relax and go be sociable at Jeff and Kathy’s 5th wheel.

Everyone wanted to hear about our recent “adventure,” of course, and the telling of the tale fell to me.  At some point my beer was gone so I walked back to our coach and opened our bottle of Nutura Carmenere, a red wine I picked up at Publix in Cocoa Beach along with a Nutura Merlot.  It was not a brand we had tried before, and I had never heard of a Carmenere, but they were $11.99 per bottle wines on sale 2 for 1.  We are always on the lookout for red wines that I like (not dry, no tannins) and are willing to risk $5 to $8 to try one.  Not surprisingly, the Carmenere was drier than I like, but I was able to drink it and I got to show everyone one of our polycarbonate wine glasses.

We stayed and chatted until 7 PM when everyone was finally hungry and we all returned to our coaches to have dinner.  After dinner I sent a brief text message to four people just to let them know that we made it to Williston without any difficulties and that I would fill them in on details tomorrow.  We were planning to go next door to John and Ali’s 5th wheel after dinner and sit around a campfire but we did not see them outside and we were very tired.  I aimed the front TV antenna towards Gainesville and we found something to watch.  Linda was off to bed before 10 PM and I was in bed by 11.   It had been a long day and we were glad to have it behind us and be back at WCRVR.

2016/04/09 (S) Water Pump Down

In spite of being very tired I stayed up late last night watching back-to-back episodes of Ken Burns’ JAZZ.  Linda went to bed around 10 PM and I turned in at 12:45 AM.  She was up at 7 AM and walked to the bath/laundry building to take a shower while I slept in until 8:30 AM.  I was going to walk over and get a shower as well but Linda informed me that the water never got more than lukewarm.  No thanks.  I decided to hang out in my sweats for a while, made a pot of coffee, and worked on my blog posts for the past week.  With all that has happened I have had quite a bit to write about.

I plugged our WiFiRanger in last night and it did not have any difficulty connecting to the resort Wi-Fi system.  The problem we seemed to be having this morning was that our devices will not stay connected to the WiFiRanger.  Nuts.

Linda needed to continue working on taxes and set her computer up on the desk.  I have not taken my computer out of its case since I packed it up on Wednesday morning but I will have to get it out sometime soon.  Our fresh water level finally dropped below 1/3 tank so I will need to hook up the water softener fairly soon but decided I would do the laundry and get a shower first.  I gathered up all of the soiled clothes, towels, and some of the bedding, along with the tote bag of laundry supplies and the tote bag of shower supplies.  I loaded everything into the car and drove to the north laundry/shower building, which is better equipped than the one near our site.  It was noon.

No one else was using the laundry so I used three of the washing machines closest to the dryers.  These washing machines take about 25 minutes to run through their cycle so it was just over half an hour before all three loads were done.  The dryers run for about 45 minutes, so once I had the laundry transferred to the dryers I took a shower.  I then drove back to our coach, dropped off the shower supply bag, and we stripped the bed.  I returned to the laundry building, washed the sheets, and transferred them to a dryer.  As each dryer load finished I moved it to a large table and folded or hung it up.  By 3 PM I had everything neatly packed back into the nylon mesh laundry bags and returned to our bus.

Linda helped me get the laundry inside and put away.  I then turned my attention to refilling our fresh water tank.  That is a bit of a process as I have to get out the pre-filter, with hoses and pressure regulator attached, and the water softener, again with hoses attached.  Heavy, bulky, awkward, etc.; it’s my second least favorite RV chore, right behind checking tire pressures. I got everything connected and turned on the water supply.  The connection at the supply faucet and the connection at the coach inlet both leaked badly.  I snugged up the coach inlet connection so it didn’t spray water.  It was still dripping quite a bit but it was good enough for filling the tank.  I opened the fill valve, heard the water flowing into the tank, and opened the door to have a look.

The remote gauge had dropped below the 1/3 tank level a day or so ago so all we could tell from the house systems panel was that we had less than 40 gallons in the tank.  I had noticed this morning that we were not getting the usual flow of water to the toilet and Linda tried to use the kitchen faucet late this morning and got no water.  Although I did not think we had used that much water we both made the (naïve) presumption that we had run the tank dry.  To my surprise (not really), the tank was at the 1/4 level, which meant it still glad about 30 gallons of water in it.  That seemed to suggest rather strongly that the problem was something connected to the water pump.  Not good.

I shut off the water and started grousing, because I find that it makes me feel better and is part of my problem-solving process.  So does swearing a bit, so I did some of that too.  Not like a sailor, of course; I was a USAF ROTC cadet years ago, after all.  There were a few obvious things to check, after which I figured I would call Butch if they didn’t pan out.

I got out my multi-meter and then looked up the circuit numbers for the water pump and switch circuits.  I checked those circuits in the 12 VDC distribution panel and they all had +12.7 VDC which meant the fuses were OK.  The power to the pump is switched through a relay so that the pump can be turned on/off from multiple locations using momentary contact switches.  The easiest way to check the proper operation of the relay and confirm/deny the presence of power at the pump, was to disconnect the + 12 VDC and return wires from the pump and check for voltage on the supply wires.  With the relay “off” there was no voltage present (a very small mV reading).  With the relay “on” I had 12.7 VDC.  Relay off, no voltage.  That pretty much meant the water pump was down.

While not a crisis situation, this failure, at this time, and on the heels of all of our other recent problems, was certainly unwelcome news (not that any failure at any time is ever welcomed).  The only upside was that we were at a nice RV resort with full hookups, in a familiar location with relatively convenient access to resources, and in the company of friends.  We had city water available, so we could use all of the systems on the coach that required fresh water, and we were scheduled to be here for four more nights, which meant I had time to deal with the problem, including getting parts shipped here if needed.

My first instinct, however, was to try to get this fixed RIGHT NOW!  I called Smitty to see if there was any place in town that sold RV parts.  As I expected, he directed me to the local ACE Hardware store.  I knew from previous visits that they carried some RV parts but were unlikely to have 12 VDC water pumps, and even less likely to have the exact model I wanted/needed.

Linda did a Google search and located a Camping World store in Summerfield, Florida south of Ocala.  Not that I was eager to go to Camping World, the home is “list price plus,” but if they had the right pump (or any pump) in stock I was feeling like it would be worth paying the premium to get it and have the problem resolved quickly.  Unfortunately (or fortunately), it was already 4 PM and the store closed at 5 PM.  There was no way I would make it in time, so I returned my attention to making the coach usable from the city water supply.

In order to operate off of the city water supply we would need to leave the water turned on, and in order to do that I needed to get the connections to not leak.  While I probably had replacement washers in one of my parts boxes, I decided to go to ACE Hardware for washers just on the chance that they might have an appropriate water pump.

The only pump at ACE that would have worked was a 120 VAC unit and I was tempted to buy it.  In fact, when I redo the water bay I will install redundant water pumps and I am seriously considering keeping the 12 VDC pump and making the second one a 120 VAC model.  For now though, replacing the DC pump with an AC pump would involve more work than I wanted to get involved in.  I did find what I was really looking for, however; garden hose washers.  I bought two different kinds of flat washers, vinyl and rubber, and a pack of vinyl strainer washers.  I should have also bought a roll of Teflon tape, but I did not think of it at the time.  Back at our rig I realized that I was probably going to need Teflon tape.  I was sure that I had some but it was not in any of my four tool boxes.  Linda helped me empty out the car until we finally found the correct parts box.

I replaced the strainer washer in the pressure regulator fitting that attaches to the water supply as the existing one was damaged and badly deformed.  I also wrapped the supply faucet threads with Teflon tape before attaching the regulator to the faucet.  With the output of the regulator valved off I turned on the water supply.  Voilà; no leaks!

The strainer is the first line of defense against particulate matter getting into the regulator and clogging it.  When I redo the water bay, plan to set up the plumbing so that the supply water goes through a particle filter before going through a backflow preventer (check valve), an adjustable regulator, a water softener, and additional filters, all of which will be installed in the bay but easily accessed and serviced.  I might even install an inline UV sanitizer.  The only thing I will need to do to connect the coach to a water supply will be to connect a hose at both ends.  Priceless.

The other leak was at the fitting in the bay where the hose gets connected.  These garden hose fittings are cheap, easily deformed, and prone to leak, and I think they are one of the other “weak links” in the materials and systems used to make RVs.  (Sewer hoses and connectors are probably the worst, but that problem has been solved by Lippert Systems and I will be using their technology when I redo the utility bay.)  Replacing the flat washer periodically is necessary routine maintenance but easily overlooked until a problem develops.

I replaced the existing flat washer with one of the vinyl ones and then taped the threads on the (male) end of the hose with Teflon tape.  I carefully threaded the two pieces together finger tight and then just a little tighter with a pair of slip pliers.  (Over tightening actually deforms the washer and causes it to eventually leak.)  I opened all of the intermediate shutoff valves and Voilà; again, no leaks!  Our coach was now usable and we could leave the water on unless we were both going to be away from the coach for an extended time, when even a small leak could quickly become a big disaster.

Time to relax.  John and Ali were already down at Jeff and Kathy’s and Linda already had a Yuengling lager in an insulated cozy ready for me.  We took some peanuts along and walked the short distance to their site to sit a spell and visit.  Earlier in the day Jeff and Kathy had gotten a new dog and Kathy was out walking it.  They lost their Yorkie, Teddy, to cancer back in December and were not really planning on getting another dog so soon but an elderly gentleman, who lives alone in the resort, had a 3-year old dog that he was no longer able to car for and needed to find a home for it.  The dog’s name is “Mandy” and she is an 8 pound Dachshund / Miniature Poodle mix.  She has a Dachshund body size/shape and face but a silver gray, slightly wiry coat unlike any Dachshund I have ever seen.  She was friendly and sweet tempered and from all appearances she will settle in with Jeff and Kathy very easily.  While dogs get strongly attached to their owners, they also respond quickly to the kindness of strangers.

I think we were there for at least 90 minutes, perhaps two hours, before everyone got hungry and returned to their rigs for dinner.  By that time it was already 7 PM and we were headed to John and Ali’s 5th wheel once we ate, so Linda made a quick, easy dinner consisting of a nice greens salad and Amy’s Asian Noodle frozen/microwaved entrées.

After dinner I called Butch and brought him up to speed on our disc brake situation and told him about the water pump.  He and I shared the opinion that it seemed like something might have happened with the +12 VDC power supply to the coach.  Most of the house DC power circuits and systems, however, appeared to still be OK.  He reminded me that we have an Amazon Prime account and could probably get a new pump delivered to the resort by Tuesday for a much better price than at Camping World.  Roger that.  I let him know that our current plan was to leave WCRVR Wednesday morning and arrive at their place in Twelve Mile, Indiana on Friday.  He said we should go ahead and park and plug into the electrical power if they were not there as they would be setting up for a local hamfest that evening over at the county fairgrounds across the road from Bill Tharpe’s place in Mexico, Indiana.  Been there, know how to find it.

We walked next door to John and Ali’s around 8 PM and I took another Yuengling with me.  It’s been that kind of week, I guess.  They have an elevated propane firepit, conveniently located under their patio awning, and had chairs arranged around it in a conversational grouping.  We sat and talked until 10 PM, when John had to make the rounds to close up certain buildings and check the gates.  We continued to chat with Ali while John took care of his chores and he was back within 30 minutes.  By 11 PM Linda was finally too tired to be sociable, went back to our coach, and went to bed.  I stayed until almost midnight and finally left when I was yawning more than talking.  I went to bed fairly directly and went right to sleep.

2016/04/10 (N) Water Pump Prime

We got up this morning when we were ready and not a minute sooner.  I made coffee using the two new bags we bought at the Sunseed Co-op in Cocoa Beach.  I requested pancakes for breakfast and Linda obliged by making some very good ones.

Last night I was thinking about driving to Camping World in Summerfield, south of Ocala, today to buy a new water pump.  The store opened at 11 AM and I figured I would find a pet supply store and buy some cat food while I was out.  After Butch suggested last night that I could probably find the exact pump I needed through Amazon, I searched for it and he was right.  I ordered it with four hours to spare to qualify for next day delivery with an $8 upcharge so I would have it on Monday.  Standard Amazon Prime 2-day free delivery would have had it here on Tuesday, but I did not want to risk having it show up late in the day or worse, having the delivery truck get here after the office closed or not get here at all.

I had hoped to spend some time at my computer working on the blog but the best I was able to do was get it turned on, connect it to the Internet, and download my e-mail, which I had not done since Wednesday morning.  I was more than a bit surprised that I had over 80 MB of attachments!  The bulk of that was several very large photo files from our daughter having to do with some recent projects our grand-daughter Katie was involved in.

I called Chuck around 1 PM and caught him standing in line at a Cracker Barrel restaurant.  We chatted briefly while he and Barb waited to be seated and I filled him in on the latest developments in the Prevost air disc brake saga.

We had an early dinner after which we emptied out the car and the passenger side of the front bus bay to rearrange where things were stored and make room for the three new air disc brake calipers and the old one.  Linda brought the bathroom scale out and we weighed the old one as best we could.  I would have sworn it was 100 pounds but the scale said it was only 63 pounds.  That was good as four of them would only put 250 pounds in the car instead of 300 to 400 pounds.

We were able to repack the bus bay better and more quickly than I expected.  We put smaller, lighter boxes back in the car, got our beverages, and walked down to Jeff and Kathy’s 5th wheel for happy hour.  Jeff’s brother, Mark, was there and we learned that he lives in an apartment over by the Williston airport.  Jeff made hamburgers for everyone (except us, of course) and we stuck around while they ate dinner.  Jean showed up not long after everyone was done eating and joined the conversation.

Smitty had to lock all of the gates at 5 PM so I rode along while he made his rounds.  Linda and I left around 7:30 PM, as the light was just starting to fade, and went back to our coach.  We had a light dinner/snack of pretzels and hummus and shared a very delicious orange.  I called Butch and chatted briefly with him about the water pump and brakes and our revised travel plans.  As things now stand we plan to leave here Wednesday morning and get to their place in Twelve Mile, Indiana sometime on Friday.

At 8:15 PM we walked next door to John and Ali’s 5th wheel and sat around their propane firepit.  Smitty had made popcorn with peanut oil and Hawaiian sea salt.  Yum.  John had to lock up the resort buildings at 10 PM.  Linda and Ali were both tired and ready to go in for the night so I rode along with John.  Once we were back we retired to our respective rigs for the evening.  Linda was watching Elementary on TV so I picked up the story line in progress.  When it was over at 11 PM we went to bed and went right to sleep.

 

2016/04/01-05 (F-T) J-P-Shuffle CCAFS Farewell Celebration

2016/04/01 (F) The J. P. Shuffle

Linda was up before me and got to see one of the cruise ships come in at 6:20 AM.  She said it was all lit up and quite a sight.  I got out of bed at 8:20 AM and made coffee.  Linda prepared toast and jam for breakfast and gave each of us half of an orange.

I finished up my post for yesterday, worked on this one, and then noticed that an iOS 9.3.1 update was available for the Apple iOS 9.3 update that I installed Wednesday evening and Linda installed last night.  It was only 18 MB but still took a long time to download and install.

Today was April Fool’s Day and time for us to once again do “the Jetty Park shuffle.”  I have checked at least once, and often twice, each day to see if an appropriate full hookup site had become available through cancellation for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, but it had not.  Around 10 AM I walked to the office to check one last time.  Scott Ward was the JP staff person on duty and was very helpful but a site was just not available.  He was able, however, to put us on site #357 for Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday night’s.  I shortened our stay on site #3 to two nights and paid the balance for the one night.

Site #3 is a water only site, no electricity and no sewer connection, and the rules say that NO pets are allowed in that section, which is right along the channel and outside the regular fenced campground.  The staff was aware, however, that we have two cats onboard and let us have the site anyway.  We do not ever want them to escape, but especially here.

Our generator can produce more power than we can get from a “50 Amp” RV electrical connection, so not having electricity is not really a problem.  The only real downsides, other than having to move, are that we can feel, hear, and sometimes smell the generator.  We also had a problem with a circuit breaker for its cooling fan last winter.  I made a temporary fix to it but have never fixed it permanently.  We also do not like to leave the genset running when we are away from the coach, such as will be the case on Saturday morning.

I selected/processed three photos of the manatees we saw on Tuesday at Merritt Island National Wildlife a Refuge and e-mailed them to Pat and Vickie.  I then replied to a couple of e-mails from Gary at Bus Conversion Magazine.  By this time it was 11 AM so we prepared the bus, inside and out, to be moved.  With all of the Windows and roof vents closed it warmed up quickly inside even with a lot of the coach in the shade.  When I turned the ignition key the engine turned over but would not catch and my heart just sank.

I really like this bus, but I have grown weary of the uncertainty of whether things will work when needed.  I turned the ignition key off and rechecked the transmission selector and parking brake settings.  I also switched the suspension out of Level Low to drive mode although that should not have mattered.  With the ignition key turned to the ‘ON’ position the 12 V chassis battery seemed a little low and a red light flashed a few times on the transmission selector, so I turned the key off, went to the outside battery disconnect switches, and turned both the 12V and 24V disconnects off and then back on.

Back in the driver’s seat I tried again.  Normally the engine only turns over a few times before it fires.  This time I let it turn for four or five seconds and it finally started.  If I had any sense I would have driven it to the W. W. Williams Detroit Diesel service center in Orlando, but I moved it to site #3 at J. P. instead.

Our coach in Site #3 at Jetty Park & Campground, Cape Canaveral, FL. This is the “water only” camping by the shipping channel. All of these rigs are parked facing north towards the channel. It’s a great spot to watch the ships come and go.

To get from site #358 to site #3 I had to exit the fenced campground and drive around the east end of the park past the beach parking, concession building, and playground and then west along the edge of the shipping channel and around to the back row of the water only sites, all of which face the shipping channel.  As such it was a long drive to get to a site we could see from the one we just vacated.

We left the car at site #358 temporarily and Linda rode along in the bus.  I made the whole trip in 1st gear, to keep the RPMs up, and turned on the OTR A-C, both to cool the interior of the coach and to put more load on the engine and help get it up temperature.  I did not pull the tag axle up as we had walked the park/campground enough to know that I did not need to make any really tight turns.  When I was mostly into position on site #3 Linda got out and spotted the final position of the rear end.  These channel-side sites slope down towards the channel (facing north) and the back row sites get steeper the farther off the back off the site you go.  I wanted to pull forward just enough to get our tow bar clear of the access road behind the site and Linda accomplished that with an inch or two to spare.

I left the engine running and switched it to high idle to run the OTR air-conditioning.  While Linda went back to get our car I got out the step stool and awning pole and deployed all four awnings.  I then started the Genset to make sure it was going to run and produce electricity.  I also thought we might run the residential air-conditioners.  When Linda returned with our car she wanted to open up the coach so I shut off the OTR bus A-C, dropped the engine idle to low, and let it idle for a couple of minutes before shutting off the engine.  I left the genset on for the time being.

Both of our systems had been reacting to what we had eaten the last few days so we passed on lunch and just hung around our new site which was, in fact, very pleasant with a view of the water in the channel and the high ground of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on the opposite bank.

Our driver side neighbors stopped to chat on their way to the beach and let us know that they had just spotted dolphins in the channel.  I walked over and caught a glimpse of several arching repeatedly out of the water but by the time Linda got there they had submerged and not resurfaced.  Given where we are parked we should have a good chance to see dolphins and view cruise ships coming and going from the Port.

Linda made a cold garbanzo bean salad for dinner last night.  After dinner I was trying to get us connected to the park Wi-Fi system but could not maintain the connection or get us logged in.  I tried using our Verizon Mi-Fi but could not get the WiFi Ranger to work with it.  I tried to reconfigure the Amped|Wireless router to work directly with the Mi-Fi but there were problems with that as well.  At one point my ASUS notebook computer decided that it could not detect any Wi-Fi networks even thought it had two of them sitting within a couple feet of it.  I got disgusted with the whole situation, shut everything off, and we went for a walk.

Linda waves to the Disney “Magic” cruise ship as it heads out to sea from Port Canaveral, FL. There is always a crowd along the channel to wave the cruise ships in and out.

We walked over to Pat and Vickie’s coach and Vickie joined us.  We headed to the beach where we enjoyed a very brisk breeze until lightning to the southwest signaled that it was time to return to the safety of our rigs or one of the park buildings.  We headed back past the playground area towards our coach and Vickie split off for the gate in the campground fence that provided the most direct access to her site.

Back at our site we closed up the coach against the humidity and coming storm.  I then started the auxiliary powerplant (genset) and turned on the air conditioners.  Not long after that it started to rain, lightly at first, but it eventually became very heavy for a while before finally moving offshore.

With the A-C’s running I was reminded that I need to change some of the AC circuits in the main panel.  The front and middle air-conditioners are on different legs of the AC power system, front on L1 and middle on L2.  That makes sense as we would normally want to run both of them at the same time to cool the front half of the bus (living, cooking, office space) when we are awake and using the bus.  The 3rd/bedroom A-C has to go on one of the two legs and either one could create load balancing issues.  Unfortunately, the middle A-C unit is not currently producing any cooling.

To make matters worse, the charger section of our Magnum 4024 inverter/charger also draws its power from L1.  Again, it had to go somewhere, but the current configuration tends to put too much load on L1 and not enough on L2.  Even though the genset is oversized for our electrical needs an imbalance between L1 and L2 is still a problem because it is set up as a 240 VAC unit with a 240 VAC voltage regulator.  Although it has an active neutral, allowing it to supply 120 VAC to both L1 and L2 (180 degrees out of phase) the regulator is only concerned with maintaining the 240 VAC between the two legs, not the 120 VAC between each leg to neutral.

If the loads on the two legs are not reasonably balanced, the 240 VAC will “drift” off center from neutral with the voltage on the high load leg dropping and the voltage on the low load leg rising.  That, in turn, can/does cause havoc with some of the devices onboard, especially the microwave oven, APC uninterruptible power supply that powers the Amped|Wireless router, and the APC line voltage stabilizer that powers the laser printer.

We were, however, able to watch TV and found Ken Burns’ JAZZ documentary on channel 24.1.  By 11 PM we needed to get to bed as we had to be up and ready to go by 7:45 AM tomorrow morning.  I turned the genset off around 11:30 PM and let the house electrical system switch to the inverter.  I tried to watch the end of JAZZ on the TV in the bedroom but the TV and antenna controller kept losing power.  That, in turn, caused the TV to shut off and the controller to reset to position 8.  My phone and iPad chargers, both of which were plugged into AC outlets, also kept cutting in and out.

I encountered this same issue when we were boondocking at John Palmer’s place in Mayo, Florida at the end of November 2015.  At that time I turned off the SEARCH WATTS feature thinking that it was causing the problem.  Apparently that was not the problem.  My best guess is that under very low load conditions the inverter is either:  a) not inverting at all, or b) producing a voltage and/or current that is not well regulated.  In either case, it would play havoc with our entertainment and communications electronics.

Rather than screw around with this anymore tonight I gave up , turned off the TV, unplugged the antenna controller, resolved to ignore the device chargers, figuring they would work when the refrigerator or air compressor ran, and tried to fall asleep.  I could have turned on the AC lights in the living room, or our small portable fan, to draw enough AC current to keep the inverter working, but that’s really contrary to the whole notion of minimizing your energy usage to only those things that are absolutely necessary when running on batteries.

2016/04/02 (S) Cape Canaveral Lighthouse Tour

I was awake at 6 AM and we were both up and dressed by 7 AM.  I did not make coffee or have breakfast and Linda just had a piece of bread as making toast would have required me to start the genset.  The batteries were at roughly 24.6 VDC (and showing 72% SOC) with no load being drawn by the inverter so there was no need to recharge them this morning.  We were due at Pat and Vickie’s coach at 8 AM so I gathered up my camera, holster, and extra batteries.  We left at 7:40 and took our time walking over to their site.

Pat and Vickie have seating for four in their Jeep Grand Cherokee and have been providing transportation for our group outings.  We left just after 8 AM for the short drive to the Exploration Tower at the west end of Port Canaveral.  We signed up for a tour of the Cape Canaveral Lighthouse that departed from the Tower at 8:30 AM and included admission to the Tower when we returned.

There were only twelve of us on the small tour bus plus a driver (Mike) and two tour guides.  The Cape Canaveral Lighthouse is located on the grounds of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS).  One of the tour guides (Jim) had worked at the Station and was our main guide for information about the Station and the various launch sites we visited; and we visited a number of them.  One of the things we learned was that CCAFS is a Station rather than a Base because no one lives there.  All of the Air Force personnel working at CCAFS are from Patrick Air Force Base, which is located south of Cocoa Beach.  The U. S. Navy also has a presence here with facilities that service ICBM and attack submarines.

The Cape Canaveral Lighthouse located within the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL.

The Lighthouse had its own cadre of docents, and was very interesting to see and learn about, but only accounted for a little less than an hour of a 3-1/2 hour tour.  The other tour guide was Ron and he provided most of the information about Port Canaveral.  Just after exiting CCAFS we visited a small museum devoted to the history of the Station.  It was located next to the building that now houses the launch control facility for SpaceX, the commercial spaceflight venture of Elon Musk of PayPal.  There are other private/commercial companies operating at CCAFS besides SpaceX .  One of the largest is United Launch Alliance (ULA), an independent company that was formed by merging the space operations of Boeing (which absorbed McDonnell-Douglass years ago) and Lockheed-Martin.

All that remains of one of the launch pads at CCAFS, FL.

We did not really understand ahead of time what we were going to see and we were surprised by the dilapidated condition of the old launch sites.  All that remains at most of them are concrete and brick works.  Metal superstructures that were subject to rusting were long ago removed and control centers that were once stuffed full of equipment are now “abandoned in place” or used for storage.  It was like visiting an ancient historic site, which in fact it is; the first rocket launched from this site was a German V-2 in 1950 and the Mercury missions occurred in the early 1960’s over 50 years ago.

A continuation of the previous image, this is the command bunker and tunnel. CCAFS, FL.

Back at the Exploration Tower, which is owned and operated by the Canaveral Port Authority (CPA), we got wrist bands good for admission through closing time today.  The weather had been overcast all day and a check of the radar on our smartphones showed heavy rain moving our way.  Even though we were hungry we decided to experience the Tower before the rain moved in.

This is all that is left of what was once a heavily reinforced HVAC building at the launch pad. The superstructure in the distance is in active use by SpaceX and ULA. CCAFS, FL.

The Exploration Tower has seven floors plus additional structure at the top.  We took the elevator to the top floor which features an outdoor observation platform oriented to give a commanding view of Port Canaveral, CCAFS, and the John F. Kennedy Space Center to the north, as well as the Banana River to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the east.  There are also views to the south of the cities of Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach.  We took the stairs down to each floor in turn.  Each floor has a theme with related exhibits and we stopped at each one.  The 3rd floor is a small theater that shows a 20 minute film about Port Canaveral and the surrounding area; past, present, and future.  The film starts on the hour and half hour so we caught the 1 PM show.  The second floor is a balcony that affords a view of art hanging above the 1st floor lobby and gift shop.

The Exploration Tower at Port Canaveral, FL. The top floor includes an outdoor observation deck.

Back on the 1st floor I bought two coffees while Linda and Vickie shopped for gifts.  Linda found a stuffed toy of a manatee for our grand-daughter Madeline.  When we finally got back to Jetty Park at 2 PM Linda made sandwiches for lunch and I washed off some grapes.  I checked the house battery bank voltage and it was still OK.  The temperature had cooled off under cloudy skies with a strong southerly breeze, so I did not need to run the air-conditioners.

I took a nap for an hour.  Not long after I got up we noticed activity in the shipping channel so I took the camera and we went out to see what was going on.  We set up two chairs in front of the bus to watch the action.  The blue tug boat was hanging around the entrance to the Trident Turning Basin, which we had not seen it do before.  The Brevard County Sheriff boat came out along with one of the harbor pilot boats.  A U. S. Coast Guard boat, with a large caliper machine gun on the bow that was manned, headed out the channel towards the ocean at high speed.  We thought perhaps we were going to get to see a submarine arrival, which are always unannounced, but the reason for all this activity turned out to be the Carnival Cruise Ship “Valor” coming into port.  It was delayed from its scheduled arrival by almost 12 hours but that worked to my advantage as the cloud cover had thinned and provided nice lighting on the bow of the ship as it traveled west into the channel.

A 180 degree panorama, from west through north to east, from the observation deck of the Exploration Tower at Port Canaveral, FL.

A little while later the Norwegian Cruise Line “Spirit” left its dock and headed for the Atlantic Ocean accompanied by the police, Coast Guard, and harbor pilot boats.  About 20 minutes behind the NCL Spirit, the Disney “Fantasy” left its dock and started its slow trip down the channel.  Vickie showed up before it got to our position and had her iPad with her.  As the boat came abreast of our position, Vickie spotted dolphins swimming just in front of the bow.

I got out another chair and we sat in front of the bus and chatted for a while.  Vickie eventually returned to her coach to fix dinner and we went inside.  I transferred today’s photos to my computer and selected two to process and send to Vickie.

A dolphin swims in front of one of the Disney cruise ships as it heads down the channel from Port Canaveral, FL. towards the sea.

For dinner Linda improvised a potato and broccoli dish with onion, garlic, and couscous.  It was light and very tasty.  After we were done eating I texted Vickie.  They were also done with dinner so we met her at the office and went for a walk.  Back at our coach Linda checked online and found a news story about the Carnival Valor.  The Valor was delayed due to a medical situation that required them to return to the Turks and Cacos.  According to CruiseTimeTables.com, passengers were being advised to embark starting at 9 PM and to be onboard by 11 PM, with departure shortly thereafter.

Back at our coach we watched some TV and waited up for the Carnival Valor to leave as the nighttime departures are rather something to see with the ships all lit up.  Linda waited until midnight and then turned in for the night.  I stayed up until 1:30 AM but it was still docked at the west end of the port so I gave up and went to bed.

2016/04/03 (N) Bon Voyage

I was waiting for the Carnival Valor to leave Port Canaveral last night but by 1:30 AM it was still at its terminal.  It was all lit up but going nowhere, so I finally went to bed.    By midnight the skies had begun to clear and the wind, which had been steady all day, became stronger and started shifting around to the northwest and becoming noticeably cooler.

The cruise ships are particularly magical at night and I had hoped to capture some images of them, having set my camera to SCeNe selection mode (SCN) and selected “Night.”  In spite of being up late I did not sleep soundly and was aware of headlights around 5 AM.  Someone had apparently driven over from the campground to watch ships, or perhaps driven into the park, which opens at 5 AM, for this purpose.  I then noticed a ship in the shipping lane heading for the mouth of the channel.  Around 5:30 AM another cruise ship came in.  I got up, put on my robe, and tried to photograph it from the cockpit of the bus.

The nighttime arrival of the Carnival “Victory” cruise ship at Port Canaveral, FL.

I got up to stay a little after 8 AM and started the genset so I could make coffee and heat water.  Linda got up shortly thereafter and prepared our breakfast cereal.  We could see cruise ships docked at the west end of Port Canaveral so Linda checked the CruiseTimeTables.com website, and found that there were four cruise ships scheduled to depart today; three at 4 PM (the Carnival Sunshine and Victory, and the Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas) and one at 4:30 PM (the Disney Magic).

The Magnum ME-ARC indicated the house battery bank was at 24.6 VDC and 69% SOC.  I turned on the genset and the charger started in Bulk Charging mode drawing 110A at 24VDC, or just over 2,600 Watts, on L1.  I turned on the Aqua-Hot electric heating element, which is on L2, to balance the load on the genset a bit.  When the battery charger had backed off a bit and switched to Absorption mode I turned on the block heater for the main engine, which is currently on the same leg (L1) as the charger.  Balanced loads lead to balanced voltages, but it is also better for the genset mechanically to run under a somewhat heavier load than a light one.

Around 10 AM I walked over to check site #357.  It was already vacant so I went to the office to confirm that we still had it reserved for tonight through Tuesday night.  We did, so I told the office clerk that I was going to go ahead and move, if I could get the engine started, and would then come in and register.  If I couldn’t get it started I would extend our stay on site #3 until we could get the problem resolved or get it towed.  The clerk was not particularly sympathetic, but then he was the one who would have to deal with an irate customer who could not have their reserved site, and the people who camp here have very particular preferences about their sites.  Fortunately, site #3 was open so we could have stayed there until we needed to dump our holding tanks.  We could minimize water usage by using the campground bathrooms, so we could have stretched our dry camping if needed.

Back at our rig we started preparing to move it.  I moved the car over near the pedestrian gate that is very close to site #357 and walked back to the coach.  Linda had secured the inside enough for the short, slow trip.  I checked the maintenance chargers for the chassis batteries and they indicated 100% charge levels.  I opened the air supply valve for the engine accessories, engaged the 12 and 24 volt chassis battery disconnect switches, pulled the wheel chocks, and put the entry step stool away.  I put the Level Low system in Drive mode, just in case that mattered, and turned the ignition key.  The bus motor cranked quickly and fired right up!  That was a relief.

The Centurion Battalion of the United States Navy Sea Cadet Corps had arrived at the picnic area sometime before 8 AM with a large contingent of cadets and their adult leaders/chaperones.  And they had arrived in a large number of cars that filled the available parking spaces just on the other side of the road that ran behind the back row of RV sites where we were parked.  There was still plenty of room to back out, but Linda positioned herself outside to keep an eye on the back end of the rig.

The motorhome on our passenger side was also ready to leave and backed out before I did.  I don’t think he would have presented an obstacle, but having him gone was one less thing to have to keep an eye on.  I pulled up the tag axle and then pulled forward to the right to position the coach at an angle to the road behind it.  I then backed up and cut the steer tires hard left to swing the nose around to the passenger side and guide the rear end cleanly into the road well clear of any other vehicles.  Linda climbed on board and I turned on the OTR A-C, partly for comfort and partly to put more load on the engine.

We made the 5 MPH trip around the east end of the park and campground back to the campground entrance on the south side where Linda got out to open the gate.  Once I was clear of the gate she got back onboard.  We wound our way through the campground, familiar now with the road system.  When I got to the 2nd to last turn I saw that the last turn was blocked by a pickup truck pulling a 5th wheel trailer out of its site so I continued straight ahead and went clockwise around Red Knot Circle.  By the time I got back to the same intersection the pickup truck and 5th wheel were out of the way and I was able to proceed to site #357.

Linda hopped out to act as spotter.  Using what I learned two years ago from Big Bill while getting parked at Suncoast Designers in Hudson, Florida I moved to the right edge of the road as the back-in site was on that side.  As I pulled past the site and the rear wheels were by the front of the site I cut the steer tires to the left, positioning the coach at an angle to the site, all the while avoiding trees, RVs, cars, and other obstacles.  I backed straight, keeping an eye on Linda in the driver side rear view mirror, and started swinging the nose to the driver side while keeping an eye on the car parked on the other side of the road.

As soon as I was clear of that car I swung the nose hard to the driver side.  We were well clear of the Sea Grape trees on the passenger side so I straightened the steer tires and pulled forward until I had a good view of the concrete pad on one side.  I backed in following Linda’s hand signals until I could see the pad on both sides, got the rig straight and centered, and backed up until Linda gave me the stop signal (arms crossed at the wrist above her head).  We ended up parking with the front tires just off the front edge of the concrete pad as the coach was close to level and we wanted to avoid lower branches at the rear of the site.  As it was, I still had to lower the front slightly, but at least the Level Low system worked this time.  I also had to adjust the rear on one side, which worked a lot better after I lowered the tag axle.

With the coach neatly tucked in to its site and sitting level Linda walked the short distance back to where the car was parked and drove it around to our site.  Once the car was parked I walked to the office and took care of the registration.  When I got back I tried to get our network up and running but encountered all sorts of problems.  I wasted most of the rest of the afternoon trying to resolve them, to no avail.

While we were camped on site #3 I had to reconfigure the Amped|Wireless router/range-extender to work directly with our Verizon Mi-Fi.  That configuration worked OK out there, but was not working here.  The Wi-Fi ranger was seeing a number of campground Wi-Fi signals with adequate to very good signal strength, but was having a very difficult time connecting to them.  When it did, the connection would drop after a very short time.  The Amped|Wireless router/range-extender was having an equally difficult time connecting to the Wi-Fi Ranger and staying connected when it did.  I tried connecting the Wi-Ranger to our Verizon Mi-Fi but that did seem to work either.  I also noticed that the cellular signal was not as strong as usual.  Linda commented that her phone was having trouble connecting.  I finally got disgusted with the whole thing and set it aside.  Sometimes the best solution is to “just walk away.”

There were four cruise ships starting down the shipping channel roughly on time and in the order specified and Vickie joined us for the ship parade.  We were out there waiting for them, camera at the ready, and by the time the last ship was headed out to sea I had shot about 200 images.  Vickie had already eaten, and we were not ready for dinner yet, so we walked the campground and park, including the pier.

It was chilly all day yesterday with a high temperature in the low 70’s and a steady breeze from the north that resulted in a hazardous conditions warning for the beach.  As the light faded it got colder and we returned to our motorhomes.

Dinner was a nice salad and Amy’s enchiladas.  Simple, easy, tasty.  It turned colder after sunset under clear skies and a stiff northerly breeze.  It was very refreshing, initially, but eventually the coach was a bit too cool so I closed the roof vents and Linda narrowed the window openings to just an inch.  We were a little tired, not particularly captivated by what was on TV, and had to be up earlier than usual in the morning, so we were in bed before 11 PM.

2016/04/04 (M) Farewell For Now

It turned chilly after sunset last night under clear skies and a stiff northerly breeze.  It was very refreshing, actually, but eventually the coach felt chilly and we closed it up, mostly, and were in bed a bit earlier than usual.

We were up at 7 AM this morning and got dressed right away.  I made coffee, which used up our supply of Sweet Seattle Dreams beans, and we headed over to site #303 at 7:30 to see Pat and Vickie off.  They have been here since mid-February and today was departure day.  The bus motor was already running when we got there and we just watched while they got ready to pull out.  We learned long ago not to “chat” with RVers during their final departure preparations.  They drove around by the office to hook up their car and we walked over to watch.  I took a couple of pictures with my phone and used the “dawn” setting for the first time.  Soon enough they were ready to go, so we said our final “farewells for now,” and, just like that, they drove off and were gone.  Assuming no mechanical or weather issues they will be home in northern Indiana Wednesday evening.

A group of five brown pelicans coming up the channel just above the water. Jetty Park at Port Canaveral, FL.

We always find that leaving an encampment after we have been there for an extended period of time has a strange feeling and we experienced that vicariously as Pat and Vickie drove away.  The strangeness, as best I can describe it, is a combination of a sense of loss—the giving up of a familiar place and the people there—and anticipation of the journey ahead, both positive and negative.  The anticipation is positive in the sense of the possibilities of new experiences that come with the adventure of the road while the negative anticipation stems from the potential for mechanical, weather, traffic, or health problems.

With Pat and Vickie out of sight we returned to our coach and had a light breakfast of toast and jam and finished our coffee.  Linda then worked on a grocery list while I tackled out networking problems.  I gave up in disgust around 10 AM and we drove to Cocoa Beach to do some grocery shopping.  We went to the Publix supermarket first and found most of what we needed there.  A quick stop at Sunseed Food CO-OP filled in our list with blueberries, coffee, and vegan mayonnaise.  I stopped at one of the Shell stations on the way back to J. P. and topped off the fuel in the car so we would not have to deal with that tomorrow morning.

Back at our coach we got the groceries unloaded and put away.  Linda then heated some leftovers for lunch and washed some grapes.  After lunch I put in a call to Chris Yust, our National General Insurance Agent, to ask her about the letter/form we received regarding Coordination of Medical benefits.  She called back a short time later and we discussed it.  She logged into her agent support system but there was no indication of the letter/form.  Normally she can see anything the insurance company has sent to her customers.  She confirmed that we really did need to send the form in with the requested documentation.

Linda had already photographed the fronts and backs of our MPSERS/BCBS cards.  When she tried to print them the printer was “offline”.  We had this same problem at the beginning of our winter travels and it turned out to be NETWORK related.  The fix back then was to use the Advanced IP Scanner to determine what IP address was assigned to the printer and then manually reconfigure the printer to that address.  That was under Windows 8.1.  Under Windows 10 the IP Scanner didn’t work the same way and the manual reconfiguration didn’t work either.  What is particularly puzzling and annoying is that the printer does not appear to be responding correctly when set as a DHCP client.  If it was, we would not be having a problem communicating with it.

I seem to have spent a lot of time this past week dealing with network and wireless communications malfunctions, so I did what I often do and we went for a walk at 2:30 PM.  We went out on the pier and were just starting back when someone spotted a manatee between the pier and the jetty swimming towards the ocean.  The water was clear and we got a good look at it for quite a while.  It was large and presumably a full-size adult.  They really are gentle giants and it was a thrill to see it.

We walked back to the office for coffee before returning to our rig.  As soon as we went in Scott Ward handed Linda a card.  She has not been in the office that much but I have, and have often interacted with Scott while checking on, or registering for, sites.  Still, I was impressed that he remembered my last name and made the connection to the card.  The card was from our younger grand-daughter, Madeline.  It was a ‘thank you’ card for Linda for all of the custom photo postcards she has created using the PhotoPostCard app and had printed and mailed to Madeline by the PhotoPostCard service out of San Diego, California.  Linda took a picture of the card, texted it to our son, and asked him to tell Madeline “thanks” in return.  He texted back a photo of Madeline looking at the most recent postcard, which was a photo of Linda by the channel with one of the Disney cruise ships heading out to sea.

The Royal Caribbean Enchantment of the Seas was due to sail at 3:45 PM followed closely by      the Disney Dream at 4 PM.  We walked over to the shipping channel at 3:40 PM and by the time we got there the Enchantment was starting to move away from its dock.  Something did not look right and then I realized we were looking at the stern of the ship.  The cruise ships usually dock facing the ocean, so it needed to turn around to get out of Port Canaveral.

One of the amazing things about these amazing machines is their ability to maneuver in close quarters.  When in port, they can independently push the bow and stern to either side, which means they can move sideways or turn the ship around its center (or any other point).  In this case they pushed the stern out from the dock on the south side of the channel and into the opening of the middle turning basin on the north side of the channel opposite the dock.  They then backed it up slightly into the turning basin, brought the bow around into the channel, pushed the stern out into the channel, and then started moving forward down the channel towards the ocean.  It was quite a skillful maneuver and the first time we have seen this in the two weeks we have been here.

Not long after the Enchantment cleared the Jetty and turned southeast to stay in the channel, the Disney Dream started moving slowly forward and away from its dock.  The Disney terminal/dock is in an alcove (basin) on the north side of the west end of the Port so it has to turn into the straight portion of the channel.  Of all the cruise ships we have seen come and go the Disney ships appear to be in the best condition, not that any of them look bad.

We returned to our coach and I transferred photos to my computer from the camera and from my cell phone while Linda started preparing dinner.  Dinner consisted of a kale salad followed by a brown rice and kale dish with sautéed carrots, onions, and garlic.  Linda has not had any wine in a couple of weeks because of the medications she’s been taking, but I had a glass of the Arbor Mist Raspberry.  I find “flavored” wines a questionable choice, although I like Sangria and hot mulled or spiced wine.

We went for a walk after dinner that included some time on the beach.  The park and beach were a beehive of activity yesterday but things were quiet all day today and there were only a handful of people on the beach this evening.  Both conditions are nice, in their own way.  There was, however, some activity in the Trident submarine turning basin today.  The big crane was moving and a Coast Guard cutter was in and out of the basin.  An attack helicopter from Patrick AFB also made repeated passes over the area and up/down the beach.  Our friends told us that when things start getting active around the basin it usually means a submarine is coming in but that did not happen while we were watching.

Back at our coach we turned on the TV but all of the CBS programs were repeats because the NCAA Basketball final game was on cable.  I reconfigured the Amped|Wireless router to work directly with our Verizon Mi-Fi and was able to get my computer connected to the Internet and to our NAS, which is critical for backing up photos and documents.  I did not, however, mess around further with the printer.  My plan is to move it back into my office at home and leave it there.  I will find a newer one, with better networking functionality, to put in the bus.

We planned to be on the road in the morning between 8 and 8:30 AM so we went to bed before 11 PM.  Linda fell asleep before NCIS-LA ended but I watched the channel 6 news/weather before turning out the lights.  The Cleveland Indians baseball home opener was postponed because of snow on the field and the TV weatherman reported that the average last date for snow in Cleveland is April 18, and for Detroit, April 22.  In spite of a mild winter and early spring, I knew there was a reason we were not in a hurry to return home.  The low at our house was forecast to be 18 degrees F overnight.

2016/04/05 (M) Celebration

We were up at 7 AM, showered, and got dressed.  We tended to our cats and prepared the motorcoach for them to be comfortable while we were away for part of the day.  We each had a banana, and a little orange juice to wash down our vitamins, but did not have a full breakfast or our usual morning coffee.  We gathered up all of the things Linda needed for her doctor’s appointment and were in the car and on our way at 8:10 AM.

Our destination was the office of Dr. Michael Seidman in Celebration, Florida, a trip of 60 to 65 miles from Jetty Park that would take about as many minutes.  Most of the route was Toll Road (FL-528 and FL-417) and we did not have to slow down for the toll booths because we have a Florida SunPass transponder that we can move between the bus and the car.  We put the address of the clinic, which is attached to Florida Hospital, into the GPS.  It accepted Celebration as the city, but the routing showed the destination as Kissimmee.  I didn’t care what it called the place as long as it got us to the correct location.

We left earlier than needed in order to arrive earlier than required and allow for traffic and navigational contingencies.  Less than a mile from the medical center we spotted a Panera Bread Company store and stopped to have bagels and coffee.  While we were there we made use of the free Wi-Fi to update apps on our iPads and smartphones.  We left at 10:15 and finished the short trip to the Florida Hospital complex.  We found a parking spot, found the clinic building, and found the suite for the Head & Neck Surgery Center of Florida (H&NSCF).  Linda had already completed much of the required new patient paperwork so we were there with time to spare.

Sheila, one of the office assistants, got Linda checked in and wanted to know if we had brought copies of her records from Henry Ford Health System, where Dr. Seidman worked for 30 years and treated Linda for the last 20 of those.  I had e-mailed Sheila the day after she asked me to get those records to let her know that HFHS would not send them to another hospital or clinic at Linda’s request and that the H&NSCF would have to request them.  Sheila said she did not receive that e-mail, even though I replied to one she sent Linda.  Oh well, there was nothing to be done at that point.

It was a great relief to Linda to be able to get in to see Dr. Seidman.  Dr. S and his PA, Katherine, carefully went over the history of Linda’s illness and treatment of the last three weeks.  He indicated that the treatment was what he would have prescribed, which was comforting to know.  His routine ENT examination did not reveal any indication of infection or fluid in her “good” (right) ear, which was also good to know.  He really wanted to compare the recent audiological results with her last tests from HFHS so he made a call to someone at the HFHS ENT clinic and was able to get them to fax the test results.  He chaired the ENT department for much of his time at Henry Ford, and that was apparently still worth something with former colleagues.

Dr. S also inserted a scope through Linda’s right nostril and into her throat to exam the areas that cannot be seen any other way.  The scope is a thin, flexible cable with a camera and LED light source at the tip.  The image is fed to a monitor, where I got to see it in real time, but was also recorded so Linda got to see it afterwards.  Her vocal cords did not close completely and were slightly bowed, which Dr. S thought probably accounted for her weak, slightly horse, voice but there was no sign of infection or other pathology, such as tumors.  He noticed that the Eustachian tube opening was “bubbling” which he thought was a good sign.  He also examined the left nostril and did not see anything unusual there either.

All of that was good news, of course, but we were both a bit let down that there wasn’t any additional treatment he could provide at this time.  Direct injection of steroids into the middle ear was still a possibility but he wanted Linda to wait at least four weeks to see if she improved on her own before going down that path.  Equally frustrating was that her hearing, while marginal, was too good for a cochlear implant.  Not that she is eager to have one of those, of course, what she wants is the hearing in her right ear restored to what it was before she got sick a month ago.

Our friend, Mara, was moving her motorhome today from Clermont to Winter Haven and her friend, Michael, was driving to Orlando International Airport to drop off a rental car and fly back to Phoenix, Arizona.  They had hoped to do all of that by way of Celebration and have lunch, with or without us, at Ari, a Japanese sushi restaurant.  We had indicated that it was very doubtful we would make it to lunch, given the timing of Linda’s appointment, but called Mara when we got back to our car to update her.  It turned out that when she got ready to leave her motorhome slideout would not slide in.  (I think that’s why they are called slide “outs.”)  Michael returned home as planned while Mara arranged for a technician to fix her non-sliding slideout.

We needed to fax a few documents to National General Insurance Company, so we went in search of a Staples with a copy center.  Having taken care of that we wanted to have lunch before heading back to Cape Canaveral so as not to be eating dinner too late in the day.  We found another Panera near FL-417 and Orange Blossom Trail and ate there.  The kale-romaine-couscous-almond salad was excellent and the black bean soup was as good as usual.  Well fed, we got on the FL-417 Toll Road and headed back towards the FL-528 Toll Road, which we took back to Cape Canaveral.

We were back at Jetty Park before 2:30 PM and just relaxed for a while.  Around 4 PM we went outside to take care of a few things in preparation for our departure tomorrow.  I got out the waste drain hoses and connected two of them together to reach from the utility bay connection to the sewer connection, which was inconveniently located directly behind the RV pad.  We drained the waste tanks, rinsed out the hoses, and returned everything to their storage tub.  Using the 3-step stool, I retracted the two awnings on the driver side, which I had previously deployed to shade the Windows from the mid-afternoon sun.

We then emptied out the back of the car so I could add air to the temporary spare, which gave us a low pressure alarm on the drive from Webster to Cape Canaveral.  I had turned on the TireTraker TPMS earlier and most of the readings looked OK, but as long as I had the portable air compressor, hose, air chuck, and pressure gauge out I checked the front right (curb, PS) tire as a check on the TPMS. The tire gauge pressure was several pounds lower than the TPMS indicated pressure and was fairly close to where I wanted it so I left it alone.

Our destination tomorrow was Williston Crossings RV Resort in Williston, Florida, a trip of about 140 miles.  We had about a half tank of fresh water so I did not get out the softener and add any.  Somewhere in the middle of all this work we chatted with several neighbors, but eventually we got the car and bus repacked, including the patio mat and the two bag chairs.  At that point we only had the entry mat, entry stool, and power cord to deal with and the outside would be ready for travel.

Before dinner we went for a walk out by the shipping channel, the pier, and the beach.  There were people out and about but the park did not feel crowded and was quiet and calm, unlike the festive energy of the weekend with its day visitors, picnickers, and family campers with younger children.  It’s as if J. P. has moods, and one has to spend enough time here and experience them to begin to get a sense of the place.  We could understand why Pat and Vickie like to come here every year, even if that is not what we would choose to do.

I could not recall what Linda made for dinner because I am trying to finish this post a week later.  What I do recall is that the Norwegian Breakaway was scheduled to set sail at 9 PM, well after sunset.  It had been a pleasantly cool day with clear skies but turned chilly with the setting of the sun and a noticeable breeze, especially outside the campground by the water.  Linda was tired and a little chilled and chose not to walk out and watch the ship leave.  At 8:45 PM I got my camera, walked over to the channel, and positioned myself by the “Minimum Wake” sign.  I had a good view of the Port to the west and could lean on one of the posts for support if needed.  I put my camera in SCN (scene selection) mode, selected the “Night” setting, and waited.

I had not noticed that the ship was docked with its stern facing the ocean until it started to move.  Its position at the dock meant it would have to do a 180 degree turn before moving down the channel and into the ocean.  And that meant it was going to take longer to exit the port and give me more opportunity to photograph it.

The Norwegian Cruise Lines “Breakaway” doing a 180 degree maneuver in the turning basin. Port Canaveral, FL.

The cruise ships are always brightly illuminated when coming and going in the dark and are quite pretty to see as they glide almost silently by.  They are also challenging to photograph as they are often very high contrast (high dynamic range) subjects, especially at night.  Ideally I would shoot multiple bracket exposures and combine them using HDR software, but I would have to get the camera on a tripod and even then the exposures would be just long enough that the ship would change position slightly between frames.  I did the best I could with single frame, hand-held exposures braced against the sign post.  By the time the Breakaway was in open water I was getting chilled and headed back to the warmth of our bus.  I transferred the images to my computer and took a quick look at them before settling in to watch a few minutes of TV and then go to bed.

 

2016/03/27-28 (N-M) Squirrel-Nuts ENT Markets

2016/03/27 (N) Squirrel Nuts

Jasper started trying to get my attention around 7:15 AM.  He comes up close to my head on either side to get his head “scritched” and goes eyeball-to-eyeball with me from just a few inches away.  I finally got up at 7:30 AM and Linda got up around the same time.  She took her morning medications and returned to her seat bed while I tended to the cats’ food, water, and litter tray.  Linda was hungry and wanted breakfast so I cut the grapefruit in half only to find out that she cannot have grapefruit while taking the steroids.  No problem, it needed to be eaten and I can certainly eat an entire small grapefruit all by myself.

I did not feel like getting dressed right away to walk over to the office and get a couple of cups of free, but not very tasty, coffee so I ground up some of our beans and made a pot.  I have not done that since we got to Jetty Park and it was nice to have our own, special coffee again.  Once the coffee was brewed I plugged in the toaster and heated a couple of cinnamon raisin bagels for breakfast.  Linda went back to sleep after breakfast while I lingered on the sofa, enjoying my coffee, working on my blog post drafts, and playing a few games.  I eventually got a shower, got dressed, and took the trash to the dumpster.

The long range forecast was for afternoon high temperatures in the mid-80’s, plus or minus, with high humidity and rain chances.  The TV weather people have been describing the current whether as “summer like” which simply confirms for me that Florida is not someplace I want to be in the summer.  (Overnight low temperatures at home, however, are still dropping below freezing, so we are OK with where we are.)  I am tired of listening to our air-conditioners but this was going to be a mostly stay-at-home day given the weather conditions, the fact that Linda is not up for going anywhere or doing anything, and that today is Easter Sunday and many businesses are closed, even in Cocoa Beach.  At least the air-conditioners are keeping the humidity in the coach at a comfortable level, it’s the evaporator fan noise that is irritating.

A stay-at-home day is usually a good opportunity to upload some more posts to our blog and update the BCM page on our website.  The posts for the last third of December 2015 still needed to be edited before uploading so I started working on them.  I had just finished the ones for the 21st and 22nd when Linda wanted to go for a walk.  We walked over to the dumpsters to throw away our daily bag of trash and then walked to Pat and Vickie’s site where we found them sitting outside in the shade but without any breeze.  They decided to join us on our walk and we headed to the beach.  There was a steady offshore breeze but the sun was hot so we headed back to the campground in search of shade and a breeze.

We found both on the other side of the street from our site.  We got out our four folding chairs and set them up over there along with our little plastic folding table.  Yes, we own an old Prevost, but in many other ways are RVing lives are simple.  Vickie went back to their coach and returned with a beer (Leinenkugel’s Cranberry Ginger Shandy) and a bag of pretzels.  At the same time I brought out pretzel nibblers, peanuts, and almonds along with water for Linda and a beer for me (Yuengling Traditional Lager).

The air temperature was in the lower 80’s with somewhat elevated humidity, but we sat in the shade with the cool, pleasant breeze enjoying our snacks and beverages.  The squirrels here are used to people and one approached quite close to us looking for a handout.  For whatever reason I decided to share the remaining peanuts with it, which immediately attracted a couple more squirrels.  When I ran out I went inside and got more and washed off some grapes.  When the squirrels started having a territorial dispute over the peanuts I decided to quit feeding them.  About that same time we were all feeling a bit tired (relaxed?) and decided to go take naps.  Naps are good; I like naps.

At 5 PM we walked over to the shipping channel to see if one of the Disney Cruise Line ships was departing.  We got to watch The Disney Magic come all the way down the channel, led by the harbor pilot boat and followed by the Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas.  As the Magic was just rounding the bend from its dock into the straight portion of the channel someone spotted a pair of dolphins swimming up the channel.  We saw their dorsal fins but I was not able to get a photo of them.  After the two cruise ships were clear of the channel we walked to the pier.  Along the way the tugboat American Champion pulled in a barge with Scow 6 stenciled on the side.  A small derrick boat then came in from the ocean and a little while later chugged back out again.

By 6:30 PM Linda was thinking about her next steroid pill, which she had to take after dinner, so we walked back to our coach.  A can of Amy’s Chili with some Soup & Oyster Crackers made for a quick, easy, tasty meal along with some black grapes.  After dinner I was able to tune in one of the PBS affiliates.  We watched a documentary on Harry Gordon Selfridge and Selfridge’s Department Store in London, England.  That was followed by an episode of Grantchester, another of the BBC Masterpiece Mystery series.  We split an apple for a late night snack.  At 10 PM we switched to CBS and watched an episode of Elementary followed by the evening news, during which Linda converted the living room captain’s chairs into her nighttime convalescence bed.

The only part of the news that interested yes was the weather as a significant front was draped from northeast to southwest and pushing east out of the Gulf of Mexico across central and northern Florida with heavy rain and lots of lightening.  The TV weatherman said it would impact Orlando between midnight and 3 AM before finally moving out into the Atlantic Ocean.  I figured that meant any impact on us wouldn’t start until at least 1 AM and peak between 3 and 4.  Once I had a sense of the weather I turned off the lights in the front of the coach and retired to the bedroom for the evening.  I did not feel like writing or playing games so I flipped channels for a while.  I could not tune in either of the PBS affiliates, and nothing else caught my interest, so I turned off the TV and the lights and went to sleep.

2016/03/28 (M) ENT Markets

I was up at 7 AM and discovered that Linda had also just gotten up to take her morning steroids.  I put on my robe, put away the clean dishes from last night, fed the cats, cleaned the litter tray, and made a pot of coffee.  Once the coffee was brewed I toasted the last two cinnamon raisin bagels and we had those for breakfast.  After breakfast Linda played word games and I finished up yesterday’s blog post draft.

After two days of steroids Linda’s voice and hearing were slightly improved, but not much, and she continues to be tired, even listless, and sleep off and on through the day.  Today, however, she got dressed and settled in to work at her computer reconciling our charge receipts and bank balances.

We had decided that we would leave Jetty Park on Friday and were discussing where we might go next.  We knew that Linda needed a follow up appointment with her ENT back home so I called to arrange that.  We were surprised to find out that Linda’s ENT, Dr. Michael Seidman, was no longer at Henry Ford.  I was able to get an appointment with a different ENT for late April, but in the course of doing that I found out that Dr. Seidman had moved his practice to Celebration, Florida.  That’s the home of Disney World and is only about 50 miles from where we are camped!

By searching online we located the practice Dr. Seidman has joined, the Head and Neck Surgery Center of Florida (HNSCF), which is affiliated with Florida Hospital, a 7th Day Adventist facility.  I called and was informed that Tuesday, April 5 was the first day he would be seeing patients, so apparently his relocation was in-process.  We got an appointment for 11 AM.  The clinic asked me to contact HFHS and request a copy of Linda’s medical records which I decided to take care of later.  For now our immediate concern was figuring out where we were going to be camped between now and then.

At about this time Vickie called to let me know they had decided to leave on Monday, April 4 and that we could have their site starting that day if we wanted.  The trick was that we needed to go to the office together so she could cancel their reservation starting that day and I could immediately pick it up.  That prompted me to meet her and Pat at the office where I signed up for site #303 for Monday and Tuesday evenings with departure on Wednesday, April 6.

We were already set to move to site #358 tomorrow at noon for three nights so I needed a site for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights.  The only sites that were big enough to accommodate our bus and available for all three nights were in the boondocking area by the shipping channel.  I preferred that to having to move one or two extra times, and trying to squeeze into sites that were marginal in size, so Pat, Vickie, and I walked out to look at the available sites.  I selected site #3 and went back in to complete the registration process.  Vickie thought we would enjoy being parked with a view of the channel and Pat noted that the lack of trees was offset by a constant breeze.  We would also be parked facing north, so we would not have the sun on our windshields.  It came up later that we might have tried Sherwood Forest RV Park near Celebration, but at this point I did not want to move the bus very far prior to Linda’s appointment and risk having a problem which I would then have to deal with.

With all of the reservations taken care of I returned to our coach and explained the arrangements to Linda and then settled in at my computer to edit the blog posts for the last nine days of December 2015.  Around 2 PM I called the Henry Ford Hospital West Bloomfield ENT clinic to request a copy of Linda’s medical records be faxed to the Head and Neck Surgery Center of Florida.  I was transferred to the medical records department, where I was informed that they could not send records to a hospital or clinic based on a patient request and that the request would have to come directly from the receiving clinic.  The medical records clerk provided me with a phone number for the clinic to use.  We had exchanged a couple of e-mails with Sylvia at HNSCF so I replied to one of them with the relevant information.

Mid-afternoon Vickie called again to see if we wanted to ride to town with them.  Linda was feeling up to it so we agreed to go.  Our first stop was at the Sunseed Food CO-OP on N. Atlantic Avenue.  We bought a few things that did not need refrigeration and Linda made note of their extensive selections of Amy’s frozen entrees and pizzas as well as the Coconut Bliss non-dairy ice cream.  Out next stop was the small Coastal Produce market in downtown Cocoa Beach where Linda and Vickie bought some fresh produce.  We stopped at Sunseed Food CO-OP again on the way back to the campground and stocked up on Amy’s frozen entrees, got a couple of pizzas, two pints of non-dairy ice cream, and some nutritional yeast.  Vickie also bought some nutritional yeast as she had seen several recipes that called for it but was not familiar with it.

On the way back to Jetty Park Pat detoured through the western end of Port Canaveral on the south side of the shipping channel to show us the various dining options (restaurants, bars, and grills) located there.  The Disney Cruise Line terminals are a bit farther west and on the other side of the channel but we did not drive over there as we had fresh and frozen food that needed to get into our refrigerators and freezers.

With the food put away I resumed editing my blog posts from late December and managed to finish the one for December 31st just as Linda was putting dinner on the table.  I pushed the wrong button on the convection microwave oven and screwed up the sequence but the pizza still came out OK.  The fact that she felt like fixing dinner at all was one of the first good signs we have had in two weeks regarding her health.  Dinner wasn’t fancy, just a nice salad and vegan pizza, but it was tasty and it was nice to sit at the table and eat it.

After dinner we met up with Vickie and went for a long, slow walk.  Linda got to see site #3 and thought it would be nice for three nights.  We also walked the entire length of the paved sidewalk that meanders through the southern edge of the park property and saw lots of the feral cats that live here.  The cats are fed by official volunteers and we spotted numerous plastic bowls at several locations with cats hanging about nearby.  (My understanding is that feral cats and not “wild” cats; they are domestic cats that have returned to the wild.)  When we eventually made it to the beach the ocean was just an hour past low tide so there was more beach exposed than we had yet seen.  There were dark clouds visible from southwest to northwest moving slowly east so we walked north along the beach and the over the dunes to the concession building.  Linda spotted the sun just setting and it was enormous and orange-red.  We scurried up to the observation deck to get a better look and tried to take a few photos with our smartphones.  They generally capture good images with proper exposure, but the correct exposure for sunsets and sunrises can be very tricky.

With the sun out of sight we walked back along the channel to the campground office where Vickie and I each got a cup of coffee.  We then headed back towards our coach and finally went our separate ways at the fork in the road.  We were back at our coach at 8 PM and turned on the TV to watch our Monday night CBS shows.  Almost all of our TV viewing this winter has been CBS and PBS and we have been fortunate to be able to receive these signals almost everywhere.  Linda decided to try sleeping in bed for the first time in a week.  I watched the beginning of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert but turned the TV off at midnight and went to sleep.