Category Archives: CPP (HH-BW)

20240817_Lots-of-balls-in-the-air

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NOTE:  This is a longish post with no photos.

 

SATURDAY 17 August 2024 — BdW guests leave & arrive, overseas travel planning, wood floor refinishing, DR furniture donation (HfH), ACI CPP via HH/BW, e-waste recycling and UofM Health.

Mike & Sheila came to front door to thank us for hosting them and say “farewell until next time” before pulling out.  Not long after they left I got a call from our Ontario, CA friend and fellow bus nut, Bill G.  I had commented to Linda several times over the last week or so that I needed to call Bill (and Marty, and Ed), but he beat me too it.  This happens a lot.  We had a nice/long chat, mostly about house/shop projects and cruising.  He and Karen have been going on at least an annual (January) cruise for years and are much more experienced cruisers than we are.  They have mostly sailed on Royal Caribbean, so they have a lot of loyalty points, but they are doing a Princess Cruise Lines repositioning cruise in the spring of 2026 from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to Southampton, England because Royal Caribbean does not offer a similar cruise.  We will have to check the PCL website, but it sounds like the same cruise we are doing in the spring of 2025, with perhaps slightly different ports-of-call on the European continent.

After the phone call, Linda helped me load the electronics we were recycling into the back of the F-150 and drove to the county e-Waste recycling location.  The line was short, and I was in and out in very reasonable amount of time.  On the drive out of the facility, the line of vehicles coming in was backed up all the way to road, a considerable distance.  Timing is everything, and good luck helps a lot.

When I got back home, Linda and I had a long conversation about the floor refinishing project and its implications for the house and our ability to use it while the work was ongoing.  She has wanted to replace the dining room table and buffet/sideboard for a while now.  They are matching pieces to the living room and recreation room furniture that we have already donated to the local Habitat for Humanity (HfH) ReStore.  Most of our bedroom furniture is also from this same Bassett Mission-style product line.  We bought all of it the J.C. Penny store in NOVI, Michigan many, many years ago.  We still like it, but we have gotten our use out of it and are ready to pass it on to some who can use it, and getting something different for our house.

There are quite a few things we have to do before the floor refinishing work commences, and a few things we have to do after it is completed.  It was time to make a list.  The decision to donate the furniture, for instance, was a result of thinking about this task list.  By donating it we won’t have to find a place to store it.  And, we won’t need to replace it until after the floor project is done.  Genius.  This decision, of course, led us into an online search for a new dining table and buffet/sideboard.  More to come on that in future blog posts.

We have been in this house for just over 11 years, and plan to still be here for more years than that.  The recent flurry  of projects is motivated by wanting to refresh and improve things now, so we can enjoy them for many years, but still have the house and appliances in nice condition if/when we decide we want/need to sell.

While we were working on task list, BdW guest RamTam19 (Randy and Tammy B.) showed up.  They were our first visitors this year (April 16), so they just pulled in and parked in our guest RV site.  Normally I have people stop in the street but they new just what to do and just went ahead and did it.  No problem, in this case.  I went out to help get them into final position.  It was starting to rain, so we only chatted briefly and I left them to make camp.  They will be here for 5 nights, so I hope we have some good weather and get a chance to chat.

I got a reply from Kathy G. regarding the ACI/HH CPP system.  She was on vacation, but replied promptly.  While not necessary, it was appreciated.  She indicated that she was meeting with the ACI Executive Director and the HH software team on Wednesday, and would share my e-mail with them.  I replied to her e-mail, and reiterated the details of an unresolved concern regarding the logic of the BdW stay request system.

I spent the rest of the afternoon working on blog posts, and e-mail.  I received an e-mail a few days ago about the passing of a long-time member of the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC), Larry G.   Larry (K8UT/SK) was a technical superstar, especially with computer networking, a highly skilled operator, and an important contributor to the Ham radio hobby in SE lower Michigan.  I received an e-mail today with the visitation information (tomorrow) and funeral Mass details (Monday).

Earlier in the day I got a message from UofM Health reminding me to check in for my upcoming audiology appointment on Tuesday.  I don’t think I have any serious hearing issues, but my new primary care physician in the UofM-H geriatric clinic sort of indicated that he would like a baseline measurement.  It’s been a long time since I have had my hearing tested, so this seemed like a good idea, even though insurance won’t cover it.  While logged in to do the check-in, I also checked for any new invoices or outstanding balances.  I did not have any.  Linda does a great job keeping our bills paid, as long as she knows about them.

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20240815-16_Lots-Happening

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NOTE:  This is a shorter post with no photos.

 

THURSDAY 15 and FRIDAY 16 August 2024 — BdW guests, oak floor, ACI addition to HH/BW

 

Thursday 15 … Deep-cleaning, wood floor refinishing project planning, blog work, and BdW guests

Mike & Sheila returned to Greenfield Village today (in Dearborn) and visited The Henry Ford (Henry Ford Museum).

Linda continued deep-cleaning, turning her attention to the cabinets in the hall and master bathrooms.  She was on a mission.  I spent most of the day at my desk working on blog posts.

As part of refinishing the oak floors in the house, we want to remove the existing railing around the basement stairwell and replace it with something more attractive.  The product that we would like to use is Cable Bullet.  It’s a clever system that uses stainless steel cables, installed horizontally or vertically, between/through posts, and includes a tensioning system.  The posts can be wood (existing or new) or metal, which can be purchase from the company, along with top handrails.  The product can be used inside or outside, and even on stairs.

Linda revisited the Cable Bullet website and saw that they supply online estimates, but you have to submit a sketch of your project; limit 10 MB.  No problem.  They will accept a hand -drawn sketch, but why would I do that when I have CAD software?  I wouldn’t, of course, so I started working on a simple CAD layout of this project.  I had already done a CAD layout for the floor refinishing, so I simply reused that portion of the drawing, which was already to scale.  I eliminated all unnecessary details, and added necessary ones specific to the railing.

FedEx delivered the replacement hinges for Mike & Sheila’s Dometic refrigerator.  The hinge that holds the bottom of the upper/freezer door and the top of the bottom/refrigerator door, broke in half while they were driving to our house.  The only place they could locate a replacement part was Panther RV in Washington State.  They had it shipped FedEx 2-day, and it arrived this afternoon.  They got back from The Henry Ford (Museum) in Dearborn around dinner time, and came over to chat, but it was a shorter visit as they were tired.

 

Friday 16 … Different day, same stuff as yesterday

Linda spent most of the day on her deep-cleaning / reorganizing project, and I did a load of laundry while working at my desk.  First up was finishing the CAD drawing for the Cable Bullet railing estimate.  I saved it as a PDF, which turned out to be 27 KB file, much smaller than the 10 MB limit.  To upload it, however, I had to go through a whole series of options and specify my “design” choices.  I had not really studied the complete product line enough to know exactly what we wanted, but I was only interested at this point in an approximate cost, so I consulted with Linda and we made choices that were probably close to what we will actually want.  I received confirmation that the request for estimate was submitted successfully and waited for a reply.  My understanding was that an actual person would review what I submitted and assemble the quote.  The company is based in Indiana, which gave it a nice, local touch.

In light of the-mail I received on the 13th from the Airstream Club International (ACI) about the immanent release of the ACI/HH CPP joint venture, I e-mailed Kathy G, the ACI coordinator for the project, to ask a few questions and reiterate a few concerns regarding just how this will work for existing Boondockers Welcome hosts.

I spent the rest of day working on blog posts, doing final clean ups and adding to the one for this week.

Mike & Sheila were due to depart tomorrow, and came over after dinner for a long chat, a lot of which was about travel.  They were headed “up North” (northern lower peninsula) from here, with numerous stops planned in nice areas.  They would then cross the Mackinaw Bridge into the U.P. (Upper Peninsula and head west through Michigan, with a detour up to Copper Harbor, before going through Wisconsin and into northern Minnesota.  They will be doing much of this trip in September, which should be a beautiful (and cool, literally) time to be there.

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20240813_Intl-Trav-Plan_ACI-HH-CPP

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NOTE:  This is a long post with no photos.

 

TUESDAY 13 August 2024 — International/overseas travel planning and HH/ACI CPP update

Next April and May (2025) we are booked on a 24-day cruise on the Regal Princess (Princess Cruise Line), followed, but not immediately, by a 16-day Rick Steve’s land tour of England and Wales.

The cruise starts in Ft. Lauderdale (Port Hollywood), Florida and ends in Southampton, England; twice, actually.  The repositioning part of the cruise is Ft. Lauderdale to Southampton, with ports-of-call in the Azores (Portugal), France, Belgium, and The Netherlands.  On our first visit to Southampton, some passengers will disembark, some new ones will embark, and the rest (like us) will remain aboard.  The ship will then continue for another 10 days, going around the southern end of England and stopping in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland (several locations) before returning to Southampton, where we will finally debark (disembark).  Our Rick Steve’s tour begins in Bath, England six (6) days (5 nights) after we debark the ship, and we will be on our own for that time.

Having spent considerable time over the weekend booking shore excursions for our Virgin Voyages cruise this December, we were in a frame of mind to deal with those aspects of our cruise/tour trip that were still undecided.  We had itineraries for the cruise and tour, so we knew where those would take us and what we would/could see/do in each place.  We also have several Rick Steve’s travel guides, maps (including the London “tube” system), and our most valuable resource, Kate, our friend who has been to the British Isles many times.  The Rick Steve’s tour ends in London, but we will only have a couple of days there as part of the tour.

Our initial thought was to get off the ship and go explore places in England that are not part of the tour itinerary.  The more we thought about it, however, the more the idea of moving around constantly, luggage in hand, did not seem to be the right approach.  The easier, and more productive, approach would be to stay in one place, within easy distance of many things, including public transportation, and avoid having to rent a car.  In other words, stay in London.  Coming to that conclusion provided focus and clarity to what was starting to feel like an overwhelming task.

We studied our map(s) of London and compared them to the map of the tube system (subway, underground, etc.).  We would also likely need to use the train system, to get to Cambridge for instance, but less so than if we were trying to travel great distances across the countryside.  We knew what hotel the Rick Steve’s tour was using, so we concentrated on that part of London to see what was there.  It turned out to be an area with a lot of things to see and do, good access to the “tube,” and a good selection of restaurants for lunch and/or dinner.  Linda started looking seriously at hotel options, and found one in that area that looked nice enough, and was reasonably priced (by London standards).  We ran this past Kate to get her perspective, and got a “thumbs up,” so Linda booked it.  We paid a small premium to have the ability to cancel the reservation, and an additional amount to have (continental) breakfast included each day.  (The various restaurants in that area do not serve breakfast an we wanted more choice than a typical coffee shop.)

With that piece of our travel puzzle now in place, we turned our attention to our return trip to Detroit.  Ideally we would have taken the Queen Mary 2 to New York City, but we would miss its westbound departure by a week.  Besides, having been away from home for almost seven (7) weeks by this point, we though it best to fly back.  We usually fly DELTA; their main hub in the USA is DTW (Detroit Metropolitan Airport) which is also THE main airfield in southeast Michigan.

Delta only had one non-stop flight from Heathrow (or Gatwick, not sure which) to Detroit, and it was eye-wateringly expensive just for economy seating.  Ugh.  So, Linda looked at other airlines.  What she found was that we could fly Iceland Airlines (Icelandair, IcelandicUS, IcelandicCA, IcelandicUK, etc.) from London to Reykjavik to Detroit for HALF of the cost of the Delta flight.  AND … wait for it … we could do up to a 7-day layover in Iceland, and explore at least some of yet another country.  Wait … does this sound familiar?  Why, yes it does!  This is exactly what our son and his family were doing, right now.  We just hadn’t realized that Iceland Air does this with many other countries in Europe.

We did not book a flight at this time, but we almost certainly will, and do so well ahead of time.  My guess is that we will make it a 5-night layover and see as much of Iceland as we reasonably can in that time.  We have Rick Steve’s guide to Iceland, so we already know what he (his company) thinks is the best way to use that amount of time.  Before booking this flight, we need to make one last decision, how much time do we want between the end of the Rick Steve’s tour and getting on the airplane for Reykjavik?  I think the ideal arrangement would be to spend a minimum of one more night in the final tour hotel, allowing us to get up the next morning at whatever time we need to, and make our way to the airport without being rushed.

We received an update e-mail today from the Airstream Club International (ACI) about the joint venture with Harvest Hosts (HH) to move the ACI Courtesy Parking Program (CPP) from the ACI Membership Directory to the HH platform.  We think this is a good move, as they will apparently add an icon for ACI/CPP to the existing map function.  People who are ACI members, by not HH/BW members, will only see the ACI/CPP icon, but will not have to pay to use the site.  HH members who do not belong to ACI, will not see the ACI/CPP icon, but will see it if they are ACI members.  I’ve been told that, as a BW host who has also signed up to be an ACI/CPP host, ACI/CPP stay requests will be integrated with the BW stay requests.  As such, nothing will really change for us, which will be great.  We have had a fair amount of BW traffic this year, and all of the last few years except 2022 when we were traveling eastern Canada.  (We don’t accept stay requests when we are traveling.)  So, it’s not that we need more visitors, but it would be nice (for us) if fellow ACI members stopped here and we could discuss “Airstreaming.”

Mike & Sheila came over again around 5:30 PM and we had a second night of interesting and lively conversation.  We always ask guests to bring their own beverage of choice.  They brought two bottles of red wine, and insisted on sharing.  Well, okay, if we have to, I suppose.  🙂  We have always made ourselves available to guests, and many have spent time chatting with us over the years, but this year has been different.  We think it has been a confluence of factors, namely; temperature (either hot or chilly), rain, mosquitos, short (1-night) stays, or people just being busy with their own affairs.  Whatever the reason, it’s fine; we do not expect guests to spend time with us, but we enjoy and appreciate it when they do.

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