Category Archives: FMCA

Posts related to our involvement with the Family Motor Coach Association.

2015/06/01 (M) Bradd and Hall et al

The temperature dropped into the upper 40’s last night. Although the temperature in the bus only dropped to about 64 degrees F I was cold and did not sleep soundly. The electric heater pad is still on the mattress but was not plugged in so I could not use it. Linda developed a bad sore throat during the night (there are no good ones) and also did not sleep well. We got up around 7 AM and I made coffee while she got dressed and drove to the nearby Martin’s supermarket for Ibuprofen and Chloraseptic throat lozenges. Sore throats are no fun. We both hope this passes without requiring medical intervention.

We are in the newest section of Elkhart Campground which consists of narrow pull-through 50 Amp full hookup sites that are long enough to leave a towed car connected to a 45 foot motorhome. The section is not full but the motorhome on our passenger side had their GLAMARAMA 2015 parking and volunteer placards in the window this morning. We finally opened our registration packet and found that we also have a volunteer placard since Linda is volunteering at the registration table. We also discovered that we could have arrived at the Fairgrounds this morning and stayed for no charge. Oh well, Elkhart Campground is more convenient to Bradd and Hall and other Elkhart area vendors and if we checked into the rally we would immediately be working and socializing instead of shopping. One must be clear about their priorities.

Bradd and Hall is open from 9 AM to 5 PM Monday through Friday. We got there around 9:45 AM and had just gone inside when I got a call from Curtis Coleman. We was headed east on I-80 from Iowa with his sights set on Cleveland and Columbus Ohio and did not realize we were in Elkhart. He brought me up-to-date on some things having to do with RVillage and we discussed him coming to our house to hang out once he had taken care of some business later this week and we got back home from the rally.

At Bradd and Hall we were assisted by Stephanie. Bradd and Hall had a good selection of Flexsteel Captain’s chairs and Lambright Comfort Chairs but did not have any Flexsteel barrel chairs. That was more than disappointing as we thought the Flexsteel bolt down barrel chair might be just what we need to provide seating, with seat belts, on the passenger side of the coach that can swivel to face anywhere from forward to aft. They had two Flexsteel Captain’s chairs that we found comfortable enough and were not too large. Either one might do nicely to replace the front passenger seat, and possibly to replace the driver’s seat, although I am holding out for an ISRI air-suspension driver’s seat. We took cell phone photos of each of us sitting in various seats, photographed product tags, and got several fabric samples but were no closer to a decision about seating when we left than we were when we arrived.

On the drive back to the campground we stopped at Factory RV Surplus to look for some electrical components but ended up looking at furniture. They had a barrel chair that we liked but no identifying information on it. We did, however, get some free popcorn. We were headed up SR-19 and decided to go on up into Michigan and pay Michelle Henry a visit at Phoenix Paint. There did not appear to be anyone around so we left and went back to our coach and had a bite of lunch. We had planned to also visit Lambright Comfort Chairs in Shipshewana, but we had been there before and figured they would not have anything different from what Bradd and Hall had on display. With both of us being tired and Linda still not feeling well we decided to stick around the bus and continue to do online research.

Sometime during the afternoon I got a call from Jim Marin wanting to know where we were parked. From our windshield I could see their motorcoach parked up by the office waiting to come into the campground. The space to our passenger side was vacant so they registered for that one and pulled on around and in. Jim and Lydia have a 1997 MCI 102DLS-3 Vantare conversion that they bought last September. It’s a nice coach and they got a good deal on the purchase. They got plugged in and set up while we connected our car for towing and then we stood around visiting in the cool temperatures and warm sun.

We were showing them what we have done to the inside of our coach and explaining what we plan to do when there was a knock on the door. It was Curtis Coleman. He had decided that Elkhart was far enough for one day and knew we were here as a result of our conversation this morning so he pulled in for the night and was parked one spot up from Jim and Lydia. We made introductions, finished looking at our coach and then toured Jim and Lydia’s bus. I brought my tape measure and tried to quantify the size of their furniture which appeared to fit very nicely in the available space. All of us then went to Curtis’s coach, which is also a 1997 Vantare conversion of a Prevost XL, and got a sense for his seating. Both coaches have ISRI driver’s seats and both Jim and Curtis really like them.

We had eaten dinner earlier so Marin’s returned to their coach for their evening meal and we left Curtis to tend to Augie Doggie and take care of RVillage business. Curtis came over later to visit and we sat in our coach in three lawn chairs and had a great chat. He returned to his coach at 10:45 PM and we went to bed a short time later. It was forecast to drop into the mid 40’s overnight so I closed the roof vents and turned on the electric heater pad on my side of the bed.

2015/05/31 (N) Age of Disco Camping

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We were up around 8 AM. Linda took a shower after which I started the last load of laundry while she made coffee. We had our usual granola breakfast. When the washer finished I trimmed up my beard and shaved and then took my shower while Linda moved the wash to the clothes dryer. Once we were both dressed we got very busy loading the bus and preparing it for travel.

I put on my work clothes and selected my clothes for the week. Linda took care of loading the bus while I attended to preparing it for travel. The preparations went something like this. First I loaded our GLCC banner, flags, T-shirts, door prizes, tools, and our new 6 gallon pancake style Porter-Cable air compressor into our Honda Element. I turned on our TireTraker TPMS monitor and plugged in the power cord for the TPMS repeater which is installed in the passenger-side rear corner cabinet in the bedroom. I then got out our long fresh-water hose, connected it to the faucet on the front of the house, ran it under the bus, and connected it to the fresh water inlet. I got a mat to put under the fresh water tank drain and emptied about 40 gallons of water that had been in the tank since we got home on Friday, April 24. I closed the drain valve and then opened the fresh water tank fill valve.

At 3.4 gallons per minute the 120 gallon fresh water tank takes about a half hour to fill. While that was happening I got our DeWalt 15 gallon upright tank air compressor out of the garage and rolled it over to the front of the bus (it has wheels). I got our long extension cord out of the front bay and ran it from the front porch outlet to the air compressor. I then got the air hose out of the bay where it was stored along with the air chuck, and digital tire pressure gauge, and retrieved a knee pad and slip pliers from two other bays. I removed the TT TPMS sensor from each wheel in turn, checking and adjusting the pressure as I went. I always do both dual drive tires on each side at the same time to make sure they are the same.

The inside duals have valve stem extensions so I use the pliers to keep them from loosening while I unscrew the sensor. The two front tires were at 111.5 and 112.0 PSI, both above the minimum required 110.0 PSI, but I brought them up to 115.0 PSI. I like to run the tires 5 PSI over the correct pressure to allow for changes in overnight low temperatures and to provide some margin against slow leaks. The two tag axle tires were around 82.5 PSI so I reset them to 85.0 PSI. The four drive tires were around 92.5 PSI so I brought them up to 95.0 PSI.

By the time I was done with the tires the fresh water tank was full so I shut off the water and stored everything back where it came from. I then pulled the Element around behind the bus. Everything was on board by this point except the cats, the cat tree, and us. We hooked up the car for towing and checked all of the lights. I switched on (connected) the chassis batteries, opened all of the air valves, switched off the Aqua-Hot engine preheat pump and diesel burner, started the main engine, and switched the suspension to drive mode. While coach was airing up I pulled the 50 A shorepower cord and stowed it away. Back in the house we put the cats in their carriers and left them in the front hallway while we took their “tree” out to the bus. We then brought them out, locking the house behind us, and put them on board. Both cats immediately went under the front passenger seat which is their “go to” spot while the coach is moving.

All of what I have just described took place with intermittent light rain. We could not recall the last time we had to load the motorcoach, or our previous motorhome, in the rain, but we agreed that having it parked with the entrance door opposite the sidewalk to the front door of the house made it much more convenient. Still, it was reminiscent of the “age of camping,” a time in our lives when we camped frequently in a tent with our pre-teen children. While not a constant companion, rain was a frequent visitor on these outings and yet it never deterred us from going and never lessened our enjoyment. Indeed, we tried to show our children the special beauty of a hike in a Michigan woodland in the rain or the power of standing near the shore of a Great Lake during a storm. Cooking was more of challenge, to be sure, but we had a screen room in addition to our tent and made preparing and eating meals part of the adventure. Our friend Chuck said to me once that we were different from most of the other Prevost owners he and Barbara know because we were “campers.” True enough, although what we do now hardly seems like camping to us. Still, we are quite comfortable with having the furniture and flooring removed from our motorcoach, sitting on lawn chairs instead, and dining at our fold up plastic side table.

We pulled out of our driveway at 12:30 PM and made our way slowly down our muddy, pot marked dirt road to N. Hacker Road. It was nice not having to worry about scratching the side of our rig as a result of our tree trimming raid late last night. Instead of taking our usual route north to M-59 we went south on Hacker which got us on pavement a short distance later. Most of the trees on the west side of S. Hacker Road were trimmed up high enough but just before getting to Grand River Avenue we got clunked. Our front OTR TV antenna is the highest thing on the bus. It is centered side-to-side near the front and probably took the branch. I should check it for damage the next time I am on the roof.

We went south on Grand River Avenue towards Brighton and less than a mile later took the entrance ramp to I-96 west. Twenty-three miles later we took exit 122 and stopped at the Mobil Truck Stop for fuel. We were at 3/8ths of a tank and rather than fill it we only put 80 gallons on board. That was enough added fuel for approximately 480 miles and our round trip to/from the RV rally would be less than that.

We will not be using the coach for a while after this week and it is not clear what the best thing is to do relative to long term storage. Filling the tank with fuel minimizes the air in the tank and thus the opportunity for moisture to condense out. Moisture is a bad thing in diesel fuel as it enables the growth of algae. I use a biocide additive to inhibit that growth, especially at a fill up just before it is going to sit for a while, and we have a fuel polishing pump to slowly circulate the fuel and remove water and other gunk while the coach is sitting. That would seem to solve the problem, except for the fact that it is not ideal to store diesel fuel any longer than necessary before using it. I suspect that we will fill the tank at the Mobil Truck Stop just before returning home, using an extra dose of biocide, and then run the fuel polishing pump all summer.

We continued west on I-96 to the southwest corner of Lansing and then exited onto southbound I-69. It continued to be overcast with a noticeable wind out of the east. We thought we were done with the rain but continued to get an occasional sprinkle. We exited I-69 at US-12 and headed west through Coldwater and the southern tier of Michigan counties. US-12 is a good 2-lane highway with some left and right and some up and down, sometimes at the same time. It is a fun drive with nice scenery and passes through three other small towns: Bronson, Sturgis, and White Pigeon. We eventually left US-12 onto Old 205 (M-205) and a couple of miles later entered Indiana where the road became SR-19 (IN-19). A few more miles and then left (east) on CR-4 and a mile later we pulled into Elkhart campground at 4:10 PM.

Linda checked us in and then we drove to site 738, leveled the coach, and shut down the engine. We went through as much of normal arrival routine as we could, setting up the cat tree, two folding lawn chairs, and our plastic folding side table. Linda got our WiFi Ranger connected to the RV Park WiFi and got online with her iPad while I used mine to write.

We snacked on pretzels while we were traveling and by 5:30 PM we were ready for dinner. Linda made a simple salad and then cooked a couple of vegan “burgers” and served them with the remainder of the potato salad she made the other day. We went for a walk around the campground after dinner and thought we spotted Nick and Terry Russell’s Winnebago Ultimate Advantage motorhome but did not see any sign of them. The rig had Florida plates but there was a new Honda SUV parked in front. The last time we saw them they had a Ford Explorer but I have not been keeping up with Nick’s blog so they could have gotten a new car without us knowing about it.

When we finished our walk we unhooked the car. I forgot to pack my toothbrush so we drove back to the intersection of CR-4 and SR-19 where there is a CVS, a Walgreen’s, and a Martin’s supermarket. The CVS was the most convenient, and we have a discount card there, so we bought my toothbrush and picked up some pistachios and almonds on sale. Back at the coach we had small glasses of Moscato and some red grapes. It’s been a very physical week for us and by 8:30 PM Linda was ready to lie down and watch a little TV.

The TV stations here serve the area surrounding South Bend and Elkhart including the area of Michigan along the Indiana border. It took me a while to figure out where to point the antennas but I eventually remembered that there a quite a few very tall towers on the south side of US-20 about half way between Elkhart and South Bend. That was roughly southwest of our location and we were parked facing southwest so it was a simple matter to point the antennas straight forward. Bingo! (I should have remembered that the AntennaPoint.com website will give you the bearing and distance to all of the broadcast TV towers with a certain radius of a specified location, but I didn’t at the time.)

The local PBS station was in the middle of a fund raiser (they probably all were nationwide). That usually means vintage (nostalgic) musical performances and tonight was no exception with a reunion concert by the BeeGees (Brothers Gibb). Although best known (to my generation) as the “sound of disco,” personified in the movie Saturday Night Fever, the BeeGees performed actively for many years and have a very deep catalog of surprisingly familiar songs. This concert was filmed in Las Vegas in 1997 and several of the brothers have since passed away.

Good music is good music but popular music tends to take on significance for individuals based on where they were and what they were doing at the time it became popular. The BeeGees, like Ernest Hemingway, we’re so popular that it became popular to put down the music of the disco era. Thankfully that time has passed (in both cases) and we can remember fondly “the age of disco” and enjoy the art and artists for what they are, enjoyable and talented.

The BeeGees concert was followed by Motown 25. I was 12 in 1964 and although I studied and played classical music I was definitely listening to popular music on the radio and that included the new Motown sound. I was enjoying this concert as well but it was late and even I get tired and sleepy so I turned it off and went to bed.

2015/05/30 (S) Chuck and Barbara

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There were thunderstorms west of Lansing just before midnight last night but they did not reach our house during the overnight hours and we slept OK. We were up at 7 AM and off to our weekly SLAARC breakfast. Linda had a phone message yesterday from Nancy at FirstMerit Bank indicating that there was still a problem with the SLAARC bank account so we stopped there after breakfast but Nancy wasn’t in. They have frozen the account while we sort out the paperwork, causing our annual insurance check to not clear. Linda has been in touch with the insurance company, so they are aware of what is going on. When we got back to the house she wrote a personal check for the insurance premium and put it in the mail.

I gathered up the laundry, sorted it according to color (light/dark) and temperature (cold/warm), and started the first load. I downloaded and installed updates last night for my ASUS laptop computer so they finished installing when I started it this morning. I developed the habit a long time ago of checking for additional updates any time I install some and sure enough there were 11 more optional ones available. I did not install Skype for Windows Desktop 7.3 since I have Windows 8.1 and I did not install the update for a Ricoh printer as we do not have one.

There was an 80% chance of rain starting at 11 AM but the rain did not wait until then to start. Around 10:45 AM the skies opened up and the rain came down as if poured from buckets. By noon it was partly sunny, but steamy. I checked the national radar on my Wundermap iPad app and it looked like we would have more rain as the day went along.

Linda loaded a few things on the bus before the rain started and then busied herself with food preparation. Larger RV rallies have multiple activities going on every day and evening and Linda does not have the time to prepare meals from scratch. Being as we will only be gone for a week she prepared enough food to see us through and will only require reheating in the microwave. It’s a good approach; we still eat well and she has the time to fully participate in the rally.

In spite of the threat of rain I decided to wash the exterior of the bus. It was already wet anyway and the conditions were otherwise good with a heavy overcast, no direct sun, and moderate temperatures. I got the outside water turned on, got out some hoses, and connected the pressure washer. A bucket of McGuire’s Deep Crystal automotive soap (purple bottle) and the long, adjustable handle brush completed my bus cleaning arsenal. The water softener only had 137 gallons remaining when I started and I ran it down to zero by the time I had cleaned the bus and the Honda Element, so I do not know exactly how much water I used cleaning the vehicles but I’m guessing it was 150 gallons. That sounds like a lot of water but it is surprising how much water we go through in a typical day, especially if we are doing laundry or running the dishwasher.

I was finishing up washing the bus around 3:30 PM when Linda let me know that around 3:20 PM Chuck Spera had texted me and left a voice message letting us know that he and Barbara were in our general part of town and asking if they could stop by. Linda replied to the text message and said “sure” and Chuck replied that they would be here around 4:30 PM. I started the regeneration cycle on the water softener, got all of my equipment put away, and changed clothes. I uploaded my blog post for May 28th and was sitting in the living room using my iPad when they arrived.

The reason for their visit was to see what we were up to with the remodeling of the interior of our bus. I had extended an open invitation to Chuck a week ago and today worked for them. We showed them the bus and explained what we planned to do. Linda and Barbara went inside to sit and chat while Chuck and I continued the bus conversation in the bus.

Chuck and I finally came in the house and I showed him the ham shack/office which he somehow missed seeing on previous visits including our open house. By 6:30 PM we were all hungry and Linda suggested La Marsa in Brighton. It had started raining again and that, combined with the slightly later dinnertime, resulted in available parking spaces and immediate seating. After studying the menu we suggested the Koshary and salad. They accepted the recommendation so we each had lentil soup and split an order of Koshary. The only difference was that we had ours’ spicy and they had theirs’ regular. They also liked the garlic spread and warm pocket bread. We finished the meal with coffee and Barbara sweet talked the manager, Gordon, out of complimentary baklava, this being their first visit to a La Marsa restaurant.

We got home around 9:30 PM. The water softener finished regenerating around 8 PM so I put the next load of clothes in the washing machine. Driving on our street we noticed that a branch on the south side about 0.2 miles in from the main road was hanging out farther and lower than usual to the point where we would not be able to navigate past it in the morning without scraping (scratching?) the side of the bus. I located a small saw and Linda drove me back down there to try to cut it off. At the point where I could reach the branch it was over 2″ in diameter and my little saw was not up to the task of cutting through it. I did make enough of a cut, however, that I was able to bend it and get it to crack. That allowed me to pull it down and tuck it into some other low branches and keep it off the road. Not the nicest pruning job, but it was raining steadily and it was dark and I was standing in a ditch.

Linda transferred the laundry to the dryer and then started the dishwasher. We finally got to bed at 11 PM where Linda read while I worked on this post and played a few games on my iPad. We still have quite a bit to do to get ready to leave but should be able to pull out of here tomorrow around noon.

2015/05/21 (R) Cats, Cars, and Tenure

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Linda got up around 6 AM and got ready to go to the bakery. I was aware she was up but I slept in. Once up I showered and dressed for the day. I did not plan to work in the bus today so I did not put on my work clothes. Instead I needed to catch up on blog entries and take the cats to a 2 PM appointment at Plaza Veterinary Hospital in Farmington, Michigan.

I was putting a few things back in the master bedroom closet and noticed that the air-conditioning return air grill was stuffed full of insulation. We had found this in the other return air grills and removed it but we overlooked this one. I removed the grill and then removed the insulation and threw it away. There was a 1/2″ thick filter material stuffed up in the register behind the insulation. I trimmed the filter to just fit inside the grill and reattached it to the ceiling. Putting the rest of the house back together will take both of us so we will do that this evening. Besides, we like to give the carpets as much time as possible to dry out.

I went out around 9:30 AM to fuel my car and get a cup of coffee at the co-located Dunkin’ Donuts. Back home I put my floor mat back in front of my main computer station and settled in to check e-mail and work on my blog. There was a new driver available for the NVIDIA GeForce GPU in my ASUS laptop, so I initiated the download. AT&T was providing me with a 160 KB download speed and the 277 MB driver said it would take an hour to download. No point tying up the Internet connection until the download finished so I used my iPad while I waited.

The driver downloaded a little sooner than predicted and then installed quickly. When I finally opened my e-mail and had another 50 MB of stuff to download; a lot of it BCM related. They are trying to wrap up the April 2015 issue and sent me several drafts since I last checked my e-mail. I have not been 100% successful in getting folks attached to the magazine to transmit large files via Dropbox instead of attaching them to e-mails.

Tim Olsen from our GLCC chapter called yesterday to let me know he had registered for GLAMARAMA and wanted to park with the chapter. I updated my spreadsheet and need to e-mail a few folks to clarify their intentions before giving an updated coach count to the rally parking coordinator. As often happens, I did not have much time left to work on blog posts before I had to round up the cats and take them to the vet.

Both cats complained for most of the trip to Plaza Veterinary Hospital, but they are cats and that is what they do. I weighed them on the scale in the lobby and gave the receptionist the pertinent facts concerning their health. Once in the exam room I opened their carriers. Juniper immediately came out and explored the room. We were early and had to wait a while but Juniper stayed very busy. Perhaps she was looking go for a way out. Jasper did not leave his carrier. Perhaps he figured he was safer staying in there.

Dr. Carron examined Juniper first since she was already out of her carrier. The cats both got a clean bill of health other than some tartar on their teeth. Dr. Carron did not suggest, however, that they needed to be cleaned at this time. They each got vaccinated albeit for different things. Jasper also had blood drawn. He is just a month shy of being 11 years old and Dr. Carron likes to do annual blood work on cats 8 years of age and older. Juniper is due for a 3-year rabies booster in December of this year but Jasper is not due again until sometime in 2017. Besides rabies certificates we may need an International Health Certificate for each cat to get them into Mexico and/or back into the United States if we decide to make the trip to Puerto Penasco in February 2016.

I had just left Plaza Veterinary Hospital when Linda texted me that she was wrapping up at the bakery. It was already after 3 PM at that point and traffic was thick and slow in the usual places. I had a nice QSO with Mike (W8XH) on the South Lyon 2 meter ham radio repeater for the last six miles of my trip. He and several other club members bought Yaesu digital radios at the Dayton Hamvention to use with the new Yaesu Fusion 2m repeater that five of them bought from Yaesu for a special promotional price of only $500.

I got home around 4 PM and replied to Linda’s TXT message. I got the cat carriers inside and set them free. There was no hesitation about leaving the carriers this time. Linda got home around 5 PM, 90 minutes after she left the bakery, and I filled her in on the cats’ veterinary appointments. While we were chatting we got an e-mail from our son letting us know that Shawn’s tenure at the University of Michigan had been approved by the Board of Regents at their meeting today. We were understandably pleased (and relieved) to finally receive this news and texted back our congratulations. Shawna sent back a cell phone photo of themselves celebrating at a local Ann Arbor establishment. They looked very happy.

Most car dealerships in this market are open until 9 PM on Mondays and Thursdays, and neither of us was ready for dinner yet, so we paid a visit to Champion Chevrolet on Grand River Avenue between Brighton and Howell. We were greeted by Ken, but he only dealt in used cars and handed us off to Dan Danaher. He had a Chevy Colorado on the lot so we checked it out. It was not the 4-door crew cab Z71 off-road model, but it did have 4-wheel drive. We climbed in/out of the front and back seats and played with the tailgate. The front seats were fine but I could not sit in the back without the driver seat being all the way forward. The 4-door Crew Cab adds about 7″ of rear leg room but it would still be tight. That is one of the tradeoffs with mid-size trucks. The front seats fit us nicely but this is not a truck for tall and/or large people IMHO. The Z71 off-road version may sit slightly higher but we should still be able to get in/out without needing an accessory step or running board.

The MSRP for the truck we saw was just over $30,000 and overall felt very similar to the Nissan Frontier, nice but not luxurious. In other respects, however, the trucks were very different. The Colorado 4×4 models have a transfer case and can be towed four wheels down with an automatic transmission. We liked the Frontier but it can only be towed 4-down with the manual transmission and for that reason alone is not a viable alternative for us.

Dan gave us a brochure on the Colorado and made a few notes on what we are looking for. We would obviously like to see the 4-door crew cab and drive the Z71 4×4 off-road model before deciding to buy one. He said he would call if/when he had those available for us to see and test drive. If we ordered by the end of the month we would get a 2015 model but it would take 8 – 10 weeks to arrive. Starting June 1st orders will be for a 2016 model and still take 8 – 10 weeks for delivery. Recent history suggests a 0.5% to 1.0% price increase for the new model year. We do not plan to order a new car before the end of May and a 1% price increase would not motivate us to change our minds about that.

On our way back to our car we took a quick glance at the Camaro sitting outside the showroom door. If we were buying a nostalgia car thus would be it. Linda’s first car, purchased before we were married, was a used 1967 Chevy Camaro convertible. It was white with a red interior and had a 327 cubic inch V8 under the hood. No emissions controls in those days, just raw power and $0.35/gal gasoline.

We drove to Panera in Brighton and had black bean soup and Mediterranean veggie sandwiches for dinner. By the time we got home we were ready to relax. First we took the spacers out from under the living room furniture, so we had someplace to sit, and put a few items back where they normally go. I opened one of the bottles of Malvasia Bianca white wine from the Heart of the Dessert (Eagle Ranch) winery in Alamogordo, New Mexico and we celebrated our daughter-in-law’s attainment of tenure. It’s been a good year for our son and his family and it is nice to see things finally falling into place for them. The wine was very similar to the late harvest Rieslings we get from Michigan’s Leelanau peninsula; very sweet and thus a good cocktail or dessert wine. We watched the final episode from season 1 of A Touch of Frost before turning in for the evening.

2015/05/19 (T) More Ceramic Tile

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We were up by 7:30 AM. A cold front moved through here last night with gusty winds and much cooler temperatures. The overnight low was 49 degrees F so I closed up the house and made coffee while Linda got ready for her girl’s day out with our daughter, Meghan. We had toast for breakfast and enjoyed our coffee in the living room to the warmth and glow of the gas fireplace logs. We both agree that this was a good purchase.

Linda left round 9 AM. I put a load of towels in the washing machine and then called Kate at work. I left a message asking her if she would check with Brian about an X-Plan PIN. I then returned a phone call from Kelly at Brighton Ford and had a nice chat about the F-150. She worked hard to provide me with additional pricing information as a follow-up to our meeting with Frank on Saturday. She was able to get the price on an in-stock $46,000 F-150 XLT 4×4 off-road down to $40,000 (with X-Plan but before tax, title, and destination charges). Six grand is a significant difference, and the F-150 is a nice truck, but forty grand is way more than we were thinking about spending on a vehicle.

Kate called me back while I was on the phone and I returned the call as soon as I finished talking to Kelly. Kate had already checked with Brian and he was willing to get us a PIN. One of the odd things about shopping for vehicles in Michigan, especially the Detroit area, is that Ford, GM, and Chrysler all have several “plans” that provide non-negotiable pricing for employees, vendors, and family/friends. These plans are so widely available that dealers practically assume that you have access to one of them. I think Ford is making good vehicles and the availability of X-Plan pricing certainly makes them that much more attractive. Unfortunately they are not selling the mid-sized Ranger in North America, just Europe and Australia. Mid-size trucks are more our size.

View of kitchen floor looking toward rear from living room. Black Ceramic tile has been removed to just past the refrigerator.

I moved the towels to the dryer and then got to work in the bus. The high temperature today was forecast to be 57 degrees F so I figured it would be a bit more comfortable working on the ceramic tile removal. I opened all three roof vents and set the front and middle fans on exhaust. With the front door open there was plenty of airflow. I put on my Tyvek jumpsuit and gloves and carried the unbroken tiles I got out the last couple of days to the garage for safe keeping. I then put the pieces of the ones I broke in a laundry basket to get them off the floor. They will eventually go in small boxes for disposal.

With all of that material out of the way I vacuumed up the small pieces and tiny shards as best I could along with carpet pad staples and tiny pieces of carpet, pad, and wood. I then removed the small base molding from the hallway which turned out to be more difficult than I expected. I put on my safety glasses and face shield, grabbed my floor chisel and 3-pound sledge hammer, and continued removing tiles from the floor.

Getting the tiles out of the hallway was more difficult than the kitchen/dining area. The narrow hallway limited the directions from which I could position and strike the floor chisel and the result was a much higher percentage of broken tiles. I did a little better as I moved into the area in front of the bathroom and bedroom doors and then into the bathroom. I stopped when I got to the tiles under the toilet. I will have to remove the toilet to get those tiles out and that is not going to happen until after the GLAMARAMA rally. I do not to remove and reinstall the toilet more than once so it will not get reinstalled until after the new floor is in place.

It was 1:30 PM when I quit chiseling for the day and I left the cleanup for next time. I got cleaned up and went out to take care of errands. I picked up our freshly roasted coffee beans from Teeko’s, had French fries at McDonald’s for lunch, and then went to Lowe’s. I was looking for some sort of grinder to grind down the thinset mortar that is adhered to the plywood subfloor but did not buy one. I bought a wheeled cart to pull behind our lawn tractor instead.

By the time I got home Linda had returned from her girl’s day out. She showed me all of the things she bought at Ikea, including four long-stem plastic wine glasses. We took them out to the bus but they would not fit in our wine glass holder. She also saw an 18 cubic foot refrigerator (Frostig) that might fit in our fridge alcove.

I turned on the gas fireplace logs, made some tea, and put a second load of towels in the washer. We sat in the living room researching the IKEA refrigerators on our iPads to the warmth of the fireplace. I had searched for roof access hatches this morning and found several places that sell them online so I showed that to Linda. I need to call Pat at Apex Roofing and discuss thus approach.

For dinner Linda made very nice salads with raspberries and walnuts. She then heated up the leftover risotto and lightly sautéed baby carrots as a side dish. We sat in the living room after dinner for a while and then watched the 1st and 2nd episodes of season 1 of A Touch of Frost. Although not a BBC production, it was very engaging.

2015/05/01 (F) May Day

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Wow, another month gone.

We got up after 8 AM this morning, were having coffee, and had not yet had breakfast when I got a call from Diane at SteelMaster Building Systems. They are certainly prompt in their follow up as I just submitted an RFQ last night via their website. I had a very informative conversation with her that left me favorably impressed with the company and inclined towards their products should we decide to build our barn this way. By the time I finished with her and we spent time studying SteelMaster’s website we sat down to have breakfast at 9:45 AM.

I started a load of laundry and puttered at my desk until Linda had chores for me to do. She vacuumed the main floor and tidied up the kitchen in advance of tomorrow’s dinner visit with John and Diane and wanted to take the storm door insert out of the front entrance frame and put in the screen. We like fresh air and have an abundance of it out here in the country.

We drove to the Sears Outlet at Fountain Walk in Novi to buy a box spring mattress foundation. They were already discounted and also on sale. The shipping was 50% of the sale price but we could not get it home in our car so that was our only choice. It was still a bargain and we will have it next Tuesday. We have been using the heavy, elaborate foundation that came with our Sleep Comfort mattress years ago, but it is broken and needed to be replaced.

We stopped at Lowe’s on the drive back to look at vinyl floor tiles and bought some Oxygenics shower spray heads and soap. We took a drive up Latson to see if we could find a metal arch garage that Phil Jarrell had recently spotted. We think we caught a glimpse of it on the west side of the road as we headed north towards M-59. Heading east on M-59 we took a detour up Argentine Road to see if we could find Phil’s place but never saw anything we felt confident was his. We headed east on Clyde Road and took Old US-23 back to M-59 where we stopped at Kroger for a few things before returning home. To Linda’s surprise and delight, the Kroger has some of the mock dairy vegan products, like Daiya cheeses, that she occasionally uses and cannot get at Meijer’s.

Linda had an agenda for today and next up was putting the umbrella in the outdoor table. Once that was taken care of we sat outside enjoying blue skies, bright sunshine, an air temperature of 71 degrees, and a slight breeze, none of which required the umbrella, but the point was to get it off the floor in the library where it was stored all winter. Next we moved the natural gas grill from the garage to the lower rear deck, reassembled it, and connected it to the gas supply (it has a quick connect and shutoff valve). I then busied myself removing the three shower heads and replacing them with the removable spray heads we bought at Lowe’s. If I did not do that right away they would still be sitting around in their boxes months from now.

Linda used the grill to make dinner. She grilled seasoned Brussels sprouts, tofu hot dogs, and bananas sliced in half the long way. This will be the first summer in a long time that we have had a grill. Linda is excited to have it as it expands her cooking options and provides a way to not heat up the kitchen in the warmest weather. I am looking forward new dimensions in our meals.

I had planned on reviewing an article for BCM but ended up involved in two phone calls after dinner. One was with Pat Lintner from GLAMA and our GLCC chapter and the other was with Lou Petkus from the SKP Photographers BOF. That left just enough time to watch Season 1, Episode 1 of Sherlock on DVD before turning in for the night.

2015/04/26-30 (N-R) Routine Returns

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2015/04/26 (N) Bentley

Turning the lights out at 11 PM last night meant I would be awake around 6 AM this morning and ready to get up, and that was the case. Linda was awake by 6:30 AM and we were up shortly thereafter. I was able to light the natural gas fireplace without difficulty. The only thing I can figure is that perhaps I did not have the Off/Pilot/On gas valve in the right position last night.

With the gas valve in the Off position gas cannot flow beyond the valve. In the Pilot position gas can only flow to the pilot flame assembly, and only while the knob is pushed in, until the flame has been lit long enough to cause the heat sensitive pilot valve to remain open at which point the knob can be released. I do not think gas can flow to the main burner tubes, however, until the knob is turned to the On position. There is also a Remote/Off/On switch that has to be in the Off position when lighting the pilot flame (with the built in spark igniter) and moved to the On position to allow the main burner tubes to receive gas. All I can figure is that I did not have the Off/Pilot/On valve turned to the On position. The Remote position is intended to be used with a wall mounted thermostat which we do not have. For us the firelogs are primarily decorative but are useful for taking the chill off of the early morning or late evening. We never have them on, however, unless we are in the living room or dining room where we can see them.

Linda fed the cats while I made coffee which we enjoyed in the living room by the firelogs. It was 33 degrees F outside this morning but in another week the morning temperatures should be such that we can sit on the rear deck and enjoy our morning brew out there. We finally both got dressed and Linda heated an Amy’s Breakfast Scramble and split it between us. We lingered a while longer in the living room and finally got to work on our various chores.

Linda’s focus was to continue cleaning the kitchen, off-loading food and kitchen supplies from the bus, and getting her domestic and professional domains back in order. She made a grocery list as the day went along. We would normally go to the Howell Farmers Market on Sunday morning, but the outdoor market does not start until next week.

I cleaned the cats’ litter tray, which seems to be my job at home but Linda’s job on the bus, and then got to work on revising the draft survey for the FMCA national education committee. While I was doing that I also started up a couple of our workstation computers, installed updates, and kept an eye on my e-mail and RVillage messages. I worked on the survey until dinner time, with a break for lunch, and had Linda proofread it before I uploaded it to my Dropbox and e-mailed the link to the committee. We have a telephone meeting at 3:30 PM EDT tomorrow and I wanted everyone to have a chance to look it over in advance of the meeting.

Linda made Farro with garlic, dried cranberries, almonds, and kale and cooked some fresh asparagus. A green salad and a glass of wine completed a very nice meal. Linda had a text message from her sister letting us know that her housemate, Linda, decided to have Bentley put down. He was the oldest of her three dogs, deaf and arthritic, and on medications that he would not take, and he had lost interest in food. We had both received a text message from Linda regarding our recent visit so I responded to that. We were sad that Bentley was gone, but glad that we got to see him one last time.

I turned my attention to editing photos for my April 10 blog post about out visit to Bandolier National Monument and Santa Fe, New Mexico but the batteries in my wireless mouse needed to be recharged so I plugged it in and called it quits for the night. Linda was watching the first episode of Wolf Hall (PBS) on her iPad so I finished reading the May-June 2015 issue of the Gypsy Journal and played a few rounds of my favorite games. Linda prepared some fresh berries for dessert and we enjoyed them to the glow of the firelogs before going to bed.

2015/04/27 (M) Caller #9

After coffee and cereal this morning I continued selecting and processing photos from our April 10 visit to Bandolier National Monument and Old Town Santa Fe. I ended up with 16 photos so I uploaded the post and put them in an image gallery at the end. After lunch I got all of my documents in order for my 3:30 PM (EDT) telephone meeting of the FMCA Education Committee. I chatted briefly with the committee chair to see if there were any surprises in store. I then worked on consolidating my draft blog posts for April 11 through 15 which included the time we spent in Norman, Oklahoma visiting with my uncle Bob and Aunt Helen, and four additional generations of relatives.

I exchanged e-mails with BCM Publisher Gary Hatt and Editor Dave Rush regarding my article on the redoing of the exterior of our coach. The article is 5,800 words with 71 photos and they would like to split it up and run it in installments over three or four issues. That will require me to go back through the article and identify the places where it can be split, making sure the photos track with the text, and write some additional bridge paragraphs to wrap up each installment and introduce the next one.

I dialed in to my FMCA meeting just before 3:30 PM. I was caller number nine (9) but I did not win anything. The meeting lasted almost 90 minutes. We discussed the survey we have been developing and approved a motion to pass it along to the Executive Board with the recommendation that it be sent to a random sample of the members both electronically and via USPS. I expect to receive minor corrections in the next 36 hours and get a final draft to the FMCA Executive Director on Wednesday so he can have it reviewed by an outside expert (Barry) at Membership Corporation of America (MCA). The FMCA executive board meets in a week so we will see what happens.

After the meeting I finished working on the April 11-16 consolidated post and uploaded it to our personal blog just in time for dinner which featured taco bowl salads. She started with refrigerated tortillas, draped them over ramekins, and baked them to create the shell. She reconstituted an ancho, red Hatch, and pequin chile and used them to season the pinto beans, mixed greens, tomatoes, onions, and olives that made up the filling. Franzia Fruity Red Sangria went nicely with the tacos. Later we had a fresh mixed fruit salad of blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, and bananas. We relaxed for a while, reading and playing games, but were surprisingly tired and went to bed before 10 PM. Change happens, transition takes time.

2015/04/28 (T) And now … the rest of the summer

As sometimes happens when we go to bed early, we slept in this morning and did not get out of bed until after 8 AM. It is nice to be able to do that if we want to. Coffee and toast got the day started followed by reading, writing, and cat admiring. It was a beautiful, sunny morning albeit still on the chilly side. In other words, another day in the idyllic paradise we call retirement in the country.

We have both been busy since we got home last Friday, unloading the bus and putting things in their place in the house, visiting family, cleaning and stocking the kitchen, going through mail, and working on bills and accounting, both personal and organizational. And that was mostly Linda! I helped with some of that but was mostly focused on finishing a draft survey for the FMCA education committee, sending it out, and participating in a committee meeting by teleconference yesterday afternoon. I will have some minor additional work to do on the survey by the end of the day tomorrow, but with the meeting behind me I can now concentrate on all of the other things that need to be done. To paraphrase Paul Harvey “And now … the rest of the summer.”

One of the chores that is always there is laundry. Linda seems to take over this task when we are living in the bus, but it is definitely my job when we are at home. Ditto for cleaning the cat litter tray. To be fair, both the laundry room and liter tray are in the basement where my office and the ham radio shack are located, so I am down there a lot more than her. When we first return home after being away for an extended time there is a lot of laundry to do. Not that we don’t do it while we are away, we do, but I like to clean everything that we had with us. This is not a one day task, in part because we like to limit the number of loads of laundry we do on any given day so as not to overload the septic tanks, and in part because I just do not want to spend an entire day doing laundry.

My main focus this morning, however, was to revisit my article for Bus Conversion Magazine on the renovation of the exterior of our bus back in 2011/2012. It needs to be split into 3 or 4 installments and I would rather do that myself, making sure the photos track with the text. I started a load of laundry and then got to work, keeping an eye on e-mail and RVillage. I finished restructuring the article just before lunch, uploaded it to my BCM Dropbox folder, and e-mailed the editor and publisher. Linda reheated the Farro-cranberries-almonds dish for lunch and served it with black grapes.

I moved the first load of laundry to the dryer, put a second load of laundry in the washing machine, and started compiling my posts for April 16 through 20. I got an e-mail from Lou Petkus regarding the SKP Photographers BOF website. Lou started, and leads, the BOF and administers the website while I take care of the RVillage group and someone else takes care of the member database/roster. He found and installed a free system for displaying photo albums. He was setting it up so each BOF member had their own login and could upload their own photos and wanted me (and Linda) to try it out. I did, and found a number of issues which I documented for him. I like the idea, so I hope he can resolve the issues.

I folded and hung up the dried laundry and returned to my blog post which I uploaded, tagged, and published before going upstairs. It was a beautiful day and while Linda was outside on the rear deck reading four deer walked up the eastern boundary of our property. We were chatting back there when the doorbell rang, which is unusual for us. It was Aaron, one of the kids (teenager?) from the house to our immediate east. UPS had delivered our Amazon order to their house instead of ours even though it had my name and our address on the label.

Linda sautéed onions until they were partly caramelized, pan-fried tofu slices, and then added bar-b-que sauce. She served these in tortillas rather than on buns. She also sautéed fresh green beans. I opened a bottle of Barefoot Moscato and we each had a small glass with dinner.

After dinner I called Joe Cannarozzi, the mobile mechanic who has done the majority of the service work on our bus since we got it back to Michigan in 2010. As planned, he is now in upstate New York where he will be working well into the fall. He plans to be back this way the first week in November and we made plans to have him do the routine chassis maintenance at that time. I also discussed our interior renovation plans for the bus and got some tips from him about how to approach that work, especially the floor, as he has done several.

I noticed that I had a voice message from Gary at BCM. He had called earlier in the day after I had uploaded the new 4-part version of the Exterior Makeover article so I called him back and left him a message. Tag; you’re it.

2015/04/29 (W) Bus Lunch

We had a typical start to our day; coffee, breakfast, and iPads (news, weather, games, reading, and writing). Actually, that’s how most of our days in the bus also start, so the only real difference is where we are sitting and what we can see from that vantage point. I needed to order a refill on a prescription medication so I tried doing that on my iPad. No problem iPad-wise, but the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System (MPSERS) had switched the mail order prescription drug service from Medco/Express-Scripts to Catamaran Home Delivery effective January 1, 2015. Catamaran was already the third part administrator (TPA) but was now operating their own pharmacy. Even though I already had a Catamaran account I had to register for Home Delivery service. Once I did that I was supposed to be able to see any prescriptions that had transferred over. There weren’t any 🙁 That meant I needed a new prescription. I had a mid-morning appointment and did not want to spend time “holding for the next available representative” so I decided to take care of this task tomorrow.

Linda called last Friday and arranged to have our curbside trash pickup resume this week. Wednesday is trash pickup day, so the trashcan had to go out by the street this morning. (We don’t have curbs here, so I can’t say we took the can to the curb.) The last two years Alchin’s has come past our house around noon. While we figured that would probably be the case again this year we did not want to risk missing the truck, so Linda took it out early.

Linda is the treasurer of SLAARC, our local ham radio club based in South Lyon, Michigan. The club’s bank (First Merit) is there and she needed to make a deposit. I was headed that general direction so I took it with me. The deposit made, I headed on to Chuck Spera’s bus garage in Novi, MI. Chuck and Barbara have the same model Prevost bus that we do only one year newer and converted by Liberty, so fancier than ours. Like us, they spend a lot of time in it, and, like us, there are always projects to be done. Some of those, in turn, require some discussion.

I met Chuck at his shop at 10:15 AM and had a look at his turbo boost sensor intake manifold pressure hose. It appeared to be intact but old a frayed like mine was. The one on our bus failed on the drive out to Quartzsite, AZ in December 2014. Changing his hose would be more difficult than our as is chassis batteries are in the passenger-side engine bay and make access to that side of the engine much more difficult than in our bus. We have been using the same mobile mechanic for the last few years but he has found longer term employment and cut back on the mobile servicing of Prevost chassis. I indicated to Chuck that we really needed to find someone locally who is in business at an accessible location and plans to continue as such into the foreseeable future. He suggested that we take a drive to Johnie’s in Walled Lake, so that is what we did.

Denny was not there (Johnie was his dad) but I got to see the place and now know where it is. We drove back to the Panera in Novi for lunch and then back to Chuck’s shop which is nearby. By 2 PM we had not only solved all of the world’s problems we had made good progress on unraveling the mysteries of the universe. Wanting to leave something for the next conversation I headed for home leaving Chuck to ponder the mysteries of the bus, which are far more baffling than the mysteries of the universe.

I drove home on Grand River Avenue (GRA) to avoid WB I-96 and the I-96/US-23 interchange construction. I bought gas at the Wixom Meijer’s and found out 20 minutes later that I had paid way too much for it ($2.59/gal). The BP station in Brighton had regular for $2.29 and the Shell station closest to our house had it for $2.44. Bummer. I passed a First Merit Bank on the south side of GRA just west of Old US-23 in Brighton. Not right around the corner from our house, but a lot closer than South Lyon. There is also a Jeep dealership there. We are interested in getting a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, we just don’t like the prices we are seeing.

Our Amazon shipment arrived with the two filter cartridges for the under sink housing in the bus and other things. Hopefully the delivery to the wrong address on Monday was a one-time thing. I had been trading phone messages with Gary at BCM and finally got through to him this time. I then curled up with the new B&H catalog which made it feel like Christmas in April.

Linda made a potato lentil ginger curry for dinner and it was very good. I had planned on revising the FMCA Education Survey and sending it out this evening but I was simply not in the humor to go back downstairs. I think my retirement motto is going to be “there is always tomorrow, and if not, it didn’t matter anyway.” Linda had to get up early tomorrow morning to beat the traffic headed into Detroit so we went to bed earlier than usual.

2015/04/30 (R) Steel

Linda set her alarm for 5:45 AM. The purpose of her alarm is to wake me up so I can wake her up. It worked as planned and she got up and got ready to go to the bakery while I went back to sleep.

I finally got up at 8:30 AM. I’ve been busy since we got home but also a bit tired and feeling the need to just unwind from our exciting winter out west. After breakfast I called the Internal Medicine clinic at the Henry Ford Health System Columbus Center in Novi to see if I could get my doctor’s nurse to get my doctor to write me a new prescription for my nasal spray. Naturally I never got to talk to the doctor or a nurse, but the youngish sounding lady who handled the phone call was very helpful, up to a point. She really wanted to schedule me for an appointment and was not quite piecing together that my prescription, which is for a maintenance drug, is only good for one year but my doctor only needs/wants to see me every other year. I don’t expect the new script to be a problem, but that fact that my MPSERS health care plan changed mail-order prescription providers as of January 1st may add a wrinkle. I’m not due for a physical until the fall but I will go sooner if needed to get my script. Which reminds me, I need to schedule my annual appointment with the dermatology PA.

I focused on making some last minute corrections to the FMCA education survey and shipped it off. I got an e-mail back from Diane Wolfe with some questions. She is not a member of the FMCA education committee but she and husband Brett did review and comment on it. The questions were interesting and answering them gave me a chance to explain some technicalities and cc: the FMCA Executive Director as they were as much for his benefit as hers.

I had several e-mails back and forth with Kate regarding productions at Meadowbrook Theater and an exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), all of which sounded interesting. Our social life is less active at home than on the road so we welcome such opportunities.

I had a phone call from Mike at Rocket Steel Buildings following up on an inquiry I made. He sent me a brochure and a price. It was something but not exactly the quote I was looking for. I still need to follow up with SteelMaster Building Systems and get to work on drawings for the wood-framed basilica design.

I compiled my blog posts for April 21-25, 2015 after finding the one for the 24th. I had e-mailed it from my iPad but it never arrived. I e-mailed it again and it bounced back. The spam blocker even said it was from a white listed sender (me!) but rejected it anyway. Huh ??? I sent it a third time to two addresses, one of which was not attached to our domain, and it came through to both accounts, naturally. I guess this was one of the mysteries of the universe that Chuck and I left unsolved yesterday. Anyway, I finally got it, finished compiling my posts, and uploaded, tagged, and published it.

I also had several e-mails back and forth with Lou Petkus regarding the SKP Photographers BOF and website. Gary sent me a link to a document in his Dropbox with photos and audio files from an interview he did for a featured bus article that never got written. I agreed to take a look at it and see what I can do.

I managed to get more things off of the bus, including bedding, and did two more loads of laundry. I do not like to do more than two loads a day as it over taxes the septic system. Someone rang the front doorbell, the second time this week. This time it was Kaylie, Aaron’s sister, from next door. For the second time this week UPS delivered a package, correctly addressed to me, to the wrong address. I was concerned this would happen and Linda said I was a pessimist. Apparently we were both right.

I called the local UPS store but the only thing they could do was give me the national 800 customer service number. I am a pessimist (just ask Linda), so I was not looking forward to that experience, but I called and fought my through their voice menu system. It did not include an option for my situation (of course) and I finally just kept saying “agent” until the system gave up and connected me to a real person.

“Chelsea” was apologetic, even though she had not personally done anything wrong, because that’s what customer service people are trained to do. I think someone, somewhere, once upon a time figured out that apologizing diffuses customers who are upset. Well, it doesn’t. And assuring me that it “won’t happen again” is equally meaningless when it comes from a person who is not in a position within the organization to make such a statement. But Chelsea verified my name and address and the incorrect delivery address and said she took careful notes and would make sure they got to the right person. I hope so.

What is perhaps most frustrating is that UPS has a local distribution center in Howell, and I have the address, but it is not open to the public except for limited package pickup hours. In other words, the mistake is being made by a driver who is most likely operating out of that location, or by someone scheduling the routing, but there is no customer support person or facility manager that I can talk to, face-to-face, and resolve this at the point of origin of the problem. We buy a lot stuff now through Amazon Prime, and it all gets shipped via UPS, so having it delivered anywhere other than to our house is a problem.

Linda called at 4:30 PM to let me know she was leaving the bakery at 5 PM and heading to Kathi’s. They were going to have dinner at La Marsa in Farmington Hills and give the I-96 traffic a chance to subside before she finished the drive home. I had some of the leftover potato barley ginger curry for dinner and then called Phil Jarrel to remind him that we are still trying to figure out how to put up a bus barn and still want him to do the site prep and driveway. I then called Butch to see if he was able to locate the front brake drums for their MCI MC-9 NJT bus. He was, and already had the driver side front reassembled. I responded to a couple of e-mails and filled out an online RFQ for SteelMaster Building Systems and went to bed.

2015/02/24-28 (T-S) Bus Projects

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2015/02/24 (T) Little Bus Projects

I went to bed early (for me) last night but slept in until almost 8 AM. It was cool in the coach and I had cats snuggled up with me enjoying the warmth of the electric heating pad. When I finally got up I tended to their needs—food, water, and litter—and then tended to mine; fruit juice, granola, coffee, and grapefruit. It is Tuesday, which is trash collection day, so I gathered up the trash from the kitchen and took it to the refuse container by the curb. We will only have one more trash collection while we are here and that will likely occur after we have pulled out on Tuesday March 3rd.

I finished up yesterday’s blog post, got dressed, and got to work on my bus projects. I started by wiping off the spotting on the windows and body from the recent rains. I thought the reason I spent 40 hours cleaning and waxing the body was so water would run off if it but apparently I was mistaken. I had also noticed that the wax on the passenger side of the bus had not been fully rubbed down. I started working on this but without using additional water it just made it look worse so I quit somewhat disgusted with the whole situation and got to work on other stuff.

First up was the dashboard instrument lighting. For the turbo boost gauge I made a 5 inch extension lead with red #14 wire and insulated female spade connectors on each end to connect to the +24VDC supply wire for the old gauge. I made a similar lead with black wire for the ground but only put a connector on one end to attach to the new gauge bulb holder. I used a crimp style speed connector to splice the free end into the existing ground wire which had a fork connector on the end that I did not want to cut off. I put one of the 24VDC wedge base bulbs in the holder and snapped it into the gauge.

I undid the retaining ring on the speedometer and pulled the instrument out the front of the dashboard. I thought I had wired the two light bulbs in series to use 12VDC bulbs on a 24VDC circuit but discovered that they were already wired in parallel. I pulled the two bulb holders out and the bulbs were discolored as if they had been too hot. I could not determine the voltage rating on the bulbs so I replaced them with 24V ones. I reinstalled the speedo into the dashboard and put the dashboard cover back on. I will test the lights the next time I connect the chassis batteries.

I next considered replacing the MAC valve that controls the air shutters for the two A-C compressor/condenser units in front. I looked at the existing valve and decided to hold off until I could talk to Butch. He and Fonda had taken off for the day, so that would have to wait. The valve has a diagram on it that indicates how it operates but I was not completely clear on how to read it. When I built the new air panel I used identical replacement valves and plumbed them the same as the old ones. I searched online for “pneumatic valve symbols” and got all kinds of sites. One of them had a 25 slide presentation on ANSI standard symbols and schematics so I downloaded and studied it. With my new knowledge I was able to verify that the valve was, in fact, installed correctly. I figured it was since it seemed to work correctly (until it failed) but it was nice to know for sure. I am not certain that the three control switches are wired correctly, however, but that is a different project for a different day.

I really did not want to change the entire valve. I bought the replacement valve from Hei/Tek in Phoenix so I called them for technical support. They confirmed what Butch suspected; the operator (solenoid) can be changed without replacing the entire valve. They had a defective valve and offered to take the solenoid off and mail it to me for no charge. Deal. I should have it tomorrow so I deferred any further work on this project until the part arrives.

By now it was time for lunch so I made a nice sandwich with toasted sourdough bread, vegan deli slices, Daiya havarti style vegan cheese with jalapeños, lettuce, onions, pickles, veganaise, and honey mustard.

Next up was mounting the turbo boost sensor. It was a beautiful, sunny day but rather cool so I put on one of my long-sleeve flannel work shirts. Hey, who said the desert in the winter was paradise? Oh yeah, I did. I knew this was going to be an annoying little project and it was.

The turbo boost (intake manifold pressure) sensor is a small rectangular part about 1″ wide by 2″ long by 1/2″ thick. It has a weatherproof 3-wire electrical connector and a 1/2″ long tube that the pressure hose from the intake manifold slips over. The sensor is mounted to a somewhat larger flat bracket with a slight bend in it. The bracket has an angled slot and is supposed to be secured to the back side (towards the front of the bus) of the engine computer mounting bracket by a single bolt that the slot slips over.

No doubt there is an easy (correct) way to mount the bracket, but it probably requires disassembling other stuff to create access. That was not going to happen, at least not today. One problem was that there was not a lot of space to get my hands in there to work. Another problem was that I was working “blind.” Even though I had a telescoping mirror I could not position it correctly in the available space and I needed both hands to install the bracket. But the real problem was that the retaining bolt had long ago disappeared and I had no idea what bolt was supposed to be used or if it threaded into a hole or required a nut.

I had looked this up in my engine manual some time ago so I knew where and how the bracket was supposed to mount, but the manual did not call out the diameter, thread pitch, or length of the mounting bolt. I tried several bolts that I had but none of them where right. I asked Barb to keep an eye on my tools and bus while I made a quick run to Herb’s Hardware where I bought an assortment of bolts. None of them fit.

One of my original bolts was “close” but a little loose. I decided to wrap it generously with Teflon tape to see if I could fatten it up enough to hold. I reattached the electrical harness, shortened the pressure hose, and reattached it as I would not be able to make these connections after the bracket was mounted. I finally managed to get the bracket installed and I think my taped bolt will hold it until we get home and I can figure out the correct bolt. Even if/when I do, there is no good way to get in there and tighten it. I ended up using a 7/16″ short socket with a swivel adapter and 6″ long drive extension that I turned by hand. At least it was mid-late afternoon on a beautiful day with abundant sunshine illuminating the west-facing engine bay.

I still have a half dozen projects to take care off over the next four days but it was good to have the dashboard and turbo boost sensor completed. During the course of the afternoon I discussed with Barb and Jim what I had found about the use of potassium bromide (KBr) to control seizures in dogs and cats. I really hope they will discuss this with their vet.

I made popcorn for a late afternoon snack and then checked my e-mail to see if Stacy had proofread my Quartzsite 2015 article and deal with any other correspondence from publisher Gary Hatt. She had called in sick again, so the proofreading was delayed yet another day. Linda had called while driving home but caught me in the middle of working on the turbo boost sensor mounting. I called her back around 6:30 PM my time (8:30 PM EST). She was really tired so we did not talk very long.

At 7:30 PM (MST) I called David Lambert. David currently lives in a group home in Olympia, Washington (PST). He has long been the adult best friend of J.C. Armbruster, my best friend from high school (besides Linda, of course). I met David on a visit to Washington State many, many years ago and we also became friends. I learned then that David had struggled with bi-polar affective disorder all of his life and it has not gotten better for him with time. He does not have much contact with people outside of the group home other than J.C., who has really come to his rescue over the last couple of years. David does not usually have much to say, but I try to let him know that I know he exists. Tonight, however, he was a bit more talkative and told me about recent visits with his sister Mary Kay from Everitt, Washington and his half-sister Soliel, who is moving to Sacramento, California. He also like to watch the TV program “Axe Men.” He is at least a 3rd generation native northwesterner and logging is part of his family heritage.

For dinner I heated up the “Soyrizo” we bought at Albertson’s supermarket. I diced garlic, shallot, sweet onion, carrot, green and jalapeño peppers and sautéed them is a little olive oil before adding the soy Chorizo and heating it thoroughly on high heat. It was a filling but tasty dish. After dinner I resumed working on the photos of Larry and Carol Hall’s GM bus conversion. By the time I got to bed and turned the lights out it was midnight.

2015/02/25 (W) Another “Little” Bus Project

I was up at 7:30 AM, which seems to be my norm when I’m in bed by midnight. The local Farmers Market operates on Wednesdays and this would be my last opportunity to buy a loaf of Barry’s Basic Bread. I skipped coffee and breakfast, got dressed, and counted out enough dimes and nickels from the cup where we store our change to cover the $3 cost of a loaf.

Once I got back to the coach I made coffee and had breakfast and then settled in to finish yesterday’s blog post, which needed a lot of work, and start on today’s post. Jasper sat on my lap purring and enjoying my attention for quite a long time before moving to the dinette. Juniper ate breakfast and then stretched out on the passenger seat as she does most mornings. The cockpit is the part of the bus that gets coldest at night but since we are parked facing east it is the first place to warm up in the morning. The sun is not coming up due east yet, of course; that doesn’t happen until March 21st, but it is rising more directly in front than it did in late December and much of January.

I still had a list of bus projects to work on, but first I checked my e-mail. I did not have a communique from Stacy or Gary so I logged in to our WordPress website/blog and replied to a comment Kate had recently posted. While I was logged in I updated three plug-ins, deleted 80 spam comments, and initiated a Wordfence scan. I repeated the update process for the FMCA Freethinker and Great Lakes Converted Coaches websites and the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club website. “In for dime, in for a dollar,” and “no time like the present” are phrases that came to mind.

I don’t seem to get started on bus projects much before noon, but that’s OK; nowhere is it written that I have be working on the bus at sun up. The bus projects still to be done include:

Replacing the solenoid operator on the air-conditioning shutters.
Replacing the solenoid on the pilot valve that controls the level low front axle.
Securing the wheel well body panel just forward of the PS drive axle.
Starting the generator and making sure it works by turning on all three A-C units + Starting the bus and making sure everything works, including repositioning the bus and re-leveling it to make sure the Level Low system is working.

Butch and Fonda were gone all morning so I did not know if my operator solenoid had arrived yet via the USPS. I don’t have time at the moment to sit in a holding pattern so I decided to work on the body panel. It was being held on by only two screws and a bolt without a nut, so I was able to remove it without too much difficulty. (When someone says “without too much” it means “with some.”). Once the body panel was off I could see clearly that it was supposed to be attached at six points plus the bolt that connected it to the next piece of wheel well trim. Two more things also became obvious:

that the missing screw I had set out to replace could not be reached without removing the splash guard panel in front of drive tires, and
I was going to have to slide under the bus in order to reach some of the screws.

Given that reality, I slid one of my stands under the chassis just aft of the passenger side rag axle. The chassis was about 1″ above the stand but I was reasonably confident it would keep the bus from falling on me if the passenger side air springs failed suddenly. I also pulled out one of my large sheets of plastic that make it a lot easier and more comfortable to slide under the bus, especially on gravel.

I had removed and replaced the two splash guards at Butch and Fonda’s house this past fall when we replaced the ride height linkages. Fonda helped me with that project so we both knew how obnoxious a job it was even with the bus sitting on four chassis stands so I could get under it easily and work safely and comfortably. But there was no way around it, so the splash panel came off. We put the body panel back in place but had trouble lining it up with the holes in the chassis. Where the front top corner attached we could see that an old fastener had rusted into the hole and sheared off, probably when someone tried to remove it.

Someone showed up to talk the Butch and Fonda about their work-camping job for next winter so I continued working alone. I eventually got the panel secured at all six points plus the bolt and got a nut on the bolt. I also got the splash guard back in place with the three retaining screws installed. The fourth mounting point, however, used a bolt with a spacer tube and a locknut and was in a location that made it impossible to install by myself without getting completely under the bus and sitting up by the transmission or pulling both drive wheels off, neither of which was going to happen. That meant I needed Fonda’s assistance again.

I started putting my tools away and cleaning up my worksite while I waited for Butch and Fonda’s visitor to leave. He eventually did and Fonda came over to help me with the last attachment point on the slash guard. Once that was done, again with some difficulty, I put my tool boxes away and locked up the bays and the car. It took a whole afternoon for what started out as a job to replace one missing screw. That’s often how it goes with buses.

I washed up (buses can be dirty work) and then worked on this post for a while. I called Linda a little after 5:45 PM my time (MST) figuring she would be close to being done working for the day. I figured correctly and we talked for about 15 minutes. The issue with the generator required a new pressure regulator and some new hoses. Natural gas operates at 1/2 to 1/3 the pressure of propane and, even though the generator engine is supposed to work on either just by changing an electrical connection, Bratcher Electric said they have seen this delayed failure quite a few times when switching from propane to natural gas. It is still programmed to self-test on Thursdays at 11AM EST, so we will see if it auto-starts tomorrow like it should.

For dinner I made a mixed greens salad with onion, carrot, green pepper, dried cranberries, honey roasted peanuts, Daiya pepper jack vegan cheese, and Tofurkey brand deli slices cut into thin strips, dressed with Newman’s Own Creamy Balsamic dressing, and a couple of grinds of fresh black pepper.

I was starting to run low on the lightly flavored/carbonated water that I enjoy and we were almost out of raisins which I use on my salads. I was also out of hummus and Snyder’s Sourdough Pretzel Nibblers both of which are unacceptable things to be without. I had checked the Road Runner Market here in town a couple of days ago but they did not have any of these products. Our supply of small paper bowls and plates was also getting low. The forty mile round trip to Albertson’s in Blythe, California would take 75 to 90 minutes and two gallons of gasoline, costing $5 to $6, but I decided to make the trip after sunset rather than work at my computer. The left side of my neck and left upper back were bothering me more than usual as a result both of long hours at the computer and working under the bus on the body panel today.

As long as I was at the store I picked up a few things that were not on my list including: Ken’s Steak House salad dressings, several different fruit preserves, another bottle of honey mustard (with real honey), another pack of Tofurkey peppered mock deli slices, some black grapes, extra chips, and two bottles of Goslings Ginger Beer. It was an easy run over and back, a nice drive over the small mountain range that separates this part of Arizona from California. We have not driven around much at night since we have been in the southwest and I discovered that both Blythe and Quartzsite sparkle like gems at night. On the drive from Blythe back to Q I could easily see all the way to the other side of the valley once I was clear of the pass. Not only were the lights of the city spread out before me, I-10 was a ribbon of white and red light snaking up the KOFA Mountains until it disappeared over the next pass. It was quite a sight.

Back at the coach I got all of the groceries moved from the car to the kitchen and put away. The plastic bags often end up with holes in the bottom because they are so thin so I sorted them according to whether they had holes or not and ended up with five of each. How convenient. I put one holy bag inside each unholy bag creating five ready-to-use double bags. Sometimes I amaze myself. But I can only bask in the glory of my accomplishments for so long and then I have to get back to the processes of daily life. Tonight that meant cleaning up the dishes from dinner and checking e-mail. I lose track of time when I am working and it was well after midnight by the time I turned off the lights.

2015/02/26 (R) LiveStream

For some reason I was awake at 7 AM. I can function on only six hours sleep but I do better on seven. By eight hours I am uncomfortable and need to get up whether I am rested or not. Even before I got up I heard engine noses and voices outside and looked to see what was going on. It took me a moment to recognize Larry and Sandy’s motorhome and then remember that they were taking it to Yuma for a long weekend. Larry had told me yesterday they were going to do that so they would be in a good position to watch an air show at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma.

It has been getting cool overnight, dropping into the upper 40’s, so I put on my sweat pants and shirt. We bought these not long after we got to Quartzsite so we would have something easy and comfortable to wear on mornings when it was cool in the coach.

I fed the cats, refreshed their water, cleaned their litter tray, bundled up the trash, ground up some Sweet Seattle Dreams coffee beans, and brewed a pot of coffee. I got out the two blue blankets and put one on the dinette seat and one on the passenger seat. Jasper immediately curled up on the dinette blanket and Juniper curled up on my lap while I sat on the coach working on my blog posts for yesterday and today and enjoyed my first cup of coffee.

I like the start of the day; it is one of my favorite times. I am usually rested and generally relaxed and have the comfort of my small morning routine. The whole day is in front of me and it is still possible to accomplish something, anything really, but not everything, and sometimes not much. The end of the day is always more variable.

I only have a few repair tasks left to do on the bus plus one or two on the car. Bus-wise, I need to:

Replace the solenoid operator on the air-conditioning shutters.
Replace the solenoid operator on the pilot valve that controls the level low front axle.
Replace one of the driver side headlights (it has a small hole in it).

Car-wise, I need to:

Replace the two auxiliary tail lights in the car.
Wash and wax the car.

Although I have most of the parts I need I was expecting another solenoid operator for the shutters to arrive in yesterday’s mail. It did not, so I hope it arrives today as I really do not want to replace the whole valve nor do I want to disassemble the new one, even though I’ve been told that it is OK to do so. I think the headlight can wait until I get home, but I need to see if I have one with me.

The other things I have to do are not maintenance/repairs, just routine checks to make sure that we, the car, and the bus are ready to roll on Tuesday. These include:

Starting the generator and making sure it works by turning on all three A-C units + some additional load(s). That will also verify that the air-conditioners work.
Starting the bus and making sure everything works, including repositioning the bus and re-leveling it to make sure the Level Low system is working.

The things that will wait until Monday include checking/setting all of the tire pressures, which I will do on Monday morning, and making sure the hitch and tie bar are ready to go.

While I was working on this post I got a call from Joe Cannarozzi, the mobile mechanic who has maintained our bus chassis, generator, and some aspects of our main engine for the last four years. He is still in Mississippi but starting to arrange his spring service calls enroute to his summer job in upstate New York. Unfortunately it looks like he will be in Michigan in early April and we will miss him this time around.

By the time I finished breakfast it had warmed up enough in the coach to take a shower. I then started a load of laundry and settled in to upload some blog posts from early January. I decided to keep doing consolidated posts and started pulling together the ones for January 1st through 7th. I selected nine photos from these dates and processed them. My work was frequently interrupted by the three loads of laundry I was doing and some necessary housekeeping.

The water level in our fresh water tank was indicating below 1/3rd so I checked it visually. It was at 1/4 so I filled it, which took about 90 gallons. I tested the water coming out of the softener for total hardness (TH) using a test strip from each bottle as I wanted to make sure the strips gave me the same reading. They did, and it was somewhere above 0.0 and below 1.5.

As the tank was nearly full I noticed water on the floor of the bay and determined that it was coming from the fresh water tank drain valve. I soaked up the water that was there and tried moving the valve quickly open and then closed to see if that might clear a small piece of debris or somehow “seat” the valve. The leak was not coming out the drain pipe onto the ground. It was seeping around the top of the valve housing but I could not determine if it was coming from a seam or around the metal rod that comes out the top and attaches to the knife blade inside. This is a 1-1/2″ diameter valve of the type used on smaller RV waste tanks, especially grey water tanks. I will check in the morning to see if it leaked overnight and probably make a trip to several of the RV stores here in town to see if I can locate a spare valve. I won’t be able to attempt a repair, however, until the tank is almost empty so I only have to dump (waste) a small amount of softened fresh water.

Interspersed with my blog work I had some pretzel nibblers and sun-dried tomato hummus and eventually ate a grapefruit. I did not feel like fixing anything fancier so that constituted lunch. Butch and Fonda left at 1:45 PM to check the P. O. Box and then go to a meeting of the Quartzsite Gem and Mineral Club. They stopped at the post office on the way hone but there was no package for me.

Linda called at 2:45 PM my time. She had wrapped up her year-end work at the bakery and was back at the house making a cup of tea before settling in for one more evening of tax return work. She was fairly confident that she would have everything wrapped up tonight or tomorrow morning. There was a tentative plan in place for her to babysit Madeline Friday evening so Brendan and Shawna could go out. Plans were also in the works to attend a women’s gymnastics competition at the University of Michigan on Saturday and then go to dinner. She did not mention whether Meghan would be joining them.

Sometime during the afternoon I got the last load of laundry out of the dryer and put away. I took a break from working at my computer around 6 PM to sit and chat with Butch and watch yet another gorgeous Quartzsite sunset. In spite of a cooler air mass the sun was very hot today, but once it started to set the air temperatures asserted their presence and we eventually retreated to our coaches for the evening.

I continued working on my blog post, checking e-mails as they popped up. I had one from Gary with my Quartzsite 2015 article attached. Although Stacy had not made it into work she was feeling well enough to edit it at home. I had planned to view a live Technomadia chat on “Making Connections on the Road” at 7 PM but forgot to tune in. I realized my oversight around 7:30 PM and joined the event in progress, but first I had to create an account with the LiveStream service which involved the usual e-mail verification process. But it was quick and I got to see/hear the last 20 minutes of the event which was mostly Q&A. The whole thing was archived, however, so after it ended I nuked a vegan hot dog for dinner and then replayed the part I had missed.

I had not yet made the bed so I took care of that and then resumed working on my blog post. I finally uploaded the post sometime around 10:30 PM and by the time I uploaded and captioned the photos, created all of the tags, and clicked the “publish” button it was after midnight. Rather than wait until tomorrow, I went through Stacy’s edits of my article, accepted most of them, and rewrote a couple of awkward sentences. I uploaded it to the BCM folder in my Dropbox and then e-mailed Mike (editor) and Gary (publisher) that it was there along with all of the photos. I also e-mailed it back to Stacy and Gary so she could compare it to the one she sent me. I got to bed at 1:30 AM, later than I like but with some things accomplished.

2015/02/27 (F) Granola Express

In spite of going to bed so late last night (early this morning, actually) I was up at 7:45 AM. That was mostly because the cats do not care what time I went to bed. They have their routines and by 8 PM they figure breakfast and fresh water are way overdue.

Linda called around 9:15 AM my time to ask me about a bucket full of water in the furnace room. The double wall stainless steel flue pipe for the furnace runs horizontally under the floor joists through the furnace room and then through my office above a suspended ceiling and finally out the east side of the house. Moisture tends to condense inside the pipe and drip out of it at the joints between sections if they are not sealed. The bucket is there to catch the drips and it was full. It used to drip on the furnace but Tom from TOMTEK HVAC sealed that gap so now it drips somewhere else.

Linda checked the status of the UPS delivery of the “care” package Linda shipped to me. It was in Blythe, California at 5:15 AM this morning and scheduled for delivery by the end of the day. It will be nice to finally have my pillow and once again be able to enjoy Linda’s homemade granola.

After breakfast I checked my e-mail, updated my water usage spreadsheet, and finalized my FMCA Freethinkers 2014 financial statements. The statements are now ready for Linda to audit, which will take her all of 10 minutes (at most). I then took stock of my BCM articles that are “in-process” and decided to finish the one on the Turbo Boost Repair and move it to the proofreading stage. With that done, I started pulling together the next consolidated blog post for January 8 – 14, 2015.

For lunch I made a sandwich with sourdough bread, salad greens, vegan deli slices, vegan cheese, pickles, veganaise, and honey mustard.

The solenoid operator from Hei/Tek in Phoenix was not in today’s mail so something obviously went wrong. I called Hei/Tek and talked to Brie. She checked with her shipping department and called me back to let me know it got sent UPS ground to our P. O. Box. UPS does not deliver to P. O. Boxes so it was sitting in Blythe, California in an undeliverable status. I gave them our P. O. Box number because she told me on Tuesday they were going to mail it (USPS). Brie gave me the number for UPS, but it was a national 800 number. I looked up the local Blythe UPS center but it had the same national number listed. It also indicated their Will Call hours were M – F, 9 – 10 AM. I called the 800 number and Jose fielded my call. He changed the status to “hold for pickup” and we will have to drive to Blythe on Monday to get it.

Somewhat ironically I had a UPS delivery scheduled for today and it arrived around 4 PM. My part could have been on the truck had I done something about this on Wednesday or Thursday. The box contained an envelope for Butch and Fonda and a small envelope for me. My envelope contained license plate tabs and registration cards for both vehicles, and dues check for our FMCA Freethinkers Chapter. The box also contained my pillow, which I have missed, and four bags of Linda’s homemade granola, which I have really missed.

Since I could not get my part until Monday I decided to take the operator solenoid off of the new valve and put it on the old valve. This was certainly a faster, easier job than replacing the entire old value/operator with the new valve/operator. I put air to the shutters and used the low voltage control circuits to test the new operator solenoid and it worked as designed and built.

I settled in at my computer to work on the next consolidated blog post, stringing seven separate posts together and selecting/processing photographs. I worked on a detailed e-mail reply to Gary at BCM and then worked for a while on another article that has been “in-process” since January.

I was finally hungry around 9:30 PM and heated up an Amy’s frozen Sweet and Sour gluten free noodle dish. Much to my surprise it was not very good, which is unusual for Amy’s products. I needed to get up and adjust tire pressures first thing in the morning so I made sure I was in bed with the lights off by midnight.

2015/02/28 (S) Out With A Roar

I got up at 7 AM and debated whether to go ahead and adjust the tire pressures or make coffee and eat breakfast first. I was a short debate and I won. It was 8 AM by the time I finished my granola and my first cup of coffee. The sun was well above the horizon but partially obscured by clouds and the temperature was 57 degrees F. I put on my zip front work hoodie (sweatshirt jacket) and went out to take care of business.

I turned on the TireTraker Monitor and stuck it in my pocket. As I removed each sensor it triggered a brief alarm on the monitor. Most of the bus and car tires were close to correct according to my air pressure gauge, with some slightly over-inflated and some slightly under inflated, except the driver side steer tire on the bus which was four pounds low. When I put a sensor back on the valve stem it reestablished communication with the monitor. This is supposed to trigger a new/current reading on the monitor but it appeared to me that all of the displayed pressure values were off, reading high in most cases by 3 – 4 pounds. I am not convinced yet that this system works the way I was told it does.

With the tires taken care of I disconnected the air hose from the air-compressor and stored it in the tray over the driver side drive wheels along with the air pressure gauge and air chuck. I disconnected the power cord and rolled it back up on its reel and then put the air-compressor back in its travel compartment in the car. I then went back inside to have my second cup of coffee.

A wind advisory was in effect for today and through the overnight hours. Winds were forecast at 25-30 MPH with gusts over 40 MPH and that is what we got. The temperature barely reached 70 degrees F while the sun played peek-boo with partly cloudy skies all day. The combination made for a brisk day. The forecast for Sunday morning through Tuesday noon is for rain, with possibly an inch along and north of I-10, and a flash flood watch from 5 PM Sunday until 5 PM Monday. February was definitely going out with a roar.

I spent the central part of the day cleaning out the front bay of the bus and re-packing it. We acquired a few things while we here, most notably supplies for cleaning and waxing the bus, and they had to be stored someplace for travel. We had kept several cardboard boxes from UPS shipments and I used those to organize the new cleaning supplies and stow them in the back seat of the car.

Butch and Fonda put their mats away yesterday and I should have done the same but was busy with other things. Jim L. stopped by to use Joe and Connie’s WiFi DSL gateway. I gave him about 30 pounds of solar salt for his water softener and he helped me fold up our large patio mat. As I have written here, the solar salt is simply not effective in recharging our portable water softener. We could use it at home in our residential water softener but it is a heavy, bulky, and inexpensive commodity so it made more sense to leave it here with someone who could use it than to transport it over 2,200 miles.

Jim L. suggested that I pull out by pulling forward, cutting my front tires hard to the right, and angle out between a concrete pad and the Palo Verde tree (bush) by the light pole. The Palo Verde was hanging out far enough that I decided to trim a few branches so as to avoid any possibility of scratching the passenger side of the coach.

My one little repair project today was to try building a “retaining pond” on the floor of the water bay underneath the leaking fresh water tank drain. I used self-stick weather seal formed to circles, one inside the other. I had noticed that there is a small gap where the discharge pipe turns and goes through the floor. My solution was to contain the water that is seeping from the drain valve in the little retaining pond and give it a chance to flow down through the gap. We are going to pick up some inexpensive bath towels on Monday to soak up the water. We can ring them out, line dry them in the dry Arizona air and brilliant sun, and re-use them.

The only outside chores I have left to do to get us ready to leave are to:

dump the waste tanks.
clean and stow the dump hoses and fittings.
top up the fresh water tank.
recharge the water softener (maybe).
check the engine oil and top it up if needed.
check the hitch, tow bar, and cables.

Mid-afternoon I called J. C. and left a message. He called me back a short time later and we talked for almost two hours. J. C. was my best friend in high school (Linda had her own special status) and is one of the only people from that period in my life with whom I am still in contact. J. C. works at Boeing Aircraft as an inspector in the 737 production facility. He is only a few months younger than me but is looking at age 66 as his earliest possible retirement point.

I also had a call from Pat Lintner. Pat is the National Director for our FMCA GLCC chapter and is also the Senior VP of the FMCA GLAMA. He wanted to give me a heads up that Jane Roush, the GLAMA President, would be sending an e-mail later today to all of the GLAMA chapter presidents and national directors regarding a recommendation that the Midwest and Great Lakes areas be merged. The Great Lakes Area consists of Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Ontario and has 21 chapters, the smallest number of any FMCAA area. The Midwest Area is made up of Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan and has 24 chapters. All of the other nine areas have more chapters. I did, in fact, receive Jane’s e-mail a few hours later and forwarded it to all of the GLCC members for whom I have valid e-mail addresses along with a few additional comments.

The rest of the day was spent doing this and that. Linda called and brought me up to date on her day. She went with Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline to Crisler Arena at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor to watch part of a women’s gymnastics competition. Meghan and Chris met them back at the Fay-Lee house for dinner. I cleaned up the dishes, mostly silverware that had accumulated over the last few days. I checked and replied to e-mails, mostly from Gary at BCM. I worked on my consolidated blog post for the second week of January and had it ready to upload by 11 PM but was too tired to start the process at that hour.

2015/02/13 (F) Liar Peg Leg Smith

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We finally fell back asleep last night and woke up around 7:30 AM. The price of the motel room included breakfast. The only things they had that we could eat were bagels, English muffins, orange juice, and coffee, but that was enough.

FMCA Freethinkers gathered at Steve & Liz Willey’s RV. Peg Leg Monument, Borrego Springs, CA.

When planning our 2-day trip we thought about driving down the east side of the Salton Sea and stopping at The Slabs, Salvation Mountain, and East Jesus on our way to our Freethinker gathering at Peg Leg. From our motel in Indio that would have turned a one hour trip into a three hour trip. After a less than restful night and a late, slow, start to the day that did not appeal to us. We took CA-86 down the west side of the Salton Sea and then headed west on the Borrego Salton Sea Way (S-22) towards Borrego Springs.

The sign says it all.

A few miles before reaching Borrego Springs we reached the 90 degree bend in the road where Henderson Canyon Road splits off to the north. A short way up Henderson Canyon Road was the entrance to a clear dirt area full of RVs. We had finally reached the Peg Leg Boondocking area. I recognized the pile of rocks from pictures and then spotted Steve and Liz Willey’s motorhome. It had several other motorhomes parked near it and we figured that was our FMCA Freethinkers group. When we pulled up in the car the group was assembled under the shade of the Willey’s patio awning. There was one couple there that we met for the first time just a couple of weeks ago in Quartzsite. We introduced ourselves to everyone, unloaded our chairs, and joined the group.

The Peg Leg Smith monument and State Historical Marker.

We sat in the shade of the patio awning, protected from the intense rays of the sun, with a view of the mountains and a cool, refreshing breeze. We got out some snacks and others did the same, creating a community snack buffet in the process. We talked (and snacked) for five hours. We had not yet seen Borrego Springs or the giant metal sculptures in the desert so around 3 PM we made plans to meet up with the group at 4:15 PM for dinner at Assaggio’s. Liz gave us a guide to Borrego Springs that included a map showing the locations of all of the sculptures. We packed up our chairs and our food and headed out Henderson Canyon Road towards Galleta Meadows at the north end of town. On our way to the Meadows we came across a self-serve fruit stand and bought a 10 pound bag of freshly picked grapefruit for $3.

The self serve fruit stand on the north end of Borrego Springs, CA.

Fresh picked oranges and grapefruits, $3 per bag. (They were delicious.)

Galleta Meadows was the vision of Dennis Avery and the sculptures have all been done by Temecula, California sculptor Ricardo Breceda. Most of them are on the north end of Borrego Springs Road and those are the ones we saw. We drove around the downtown area, which was small but quaint and attractive, and then headed back east on Palm Canyon Drive towards the airport where Assaggio’s restaurant was located.

Galletta Meadows in Borrego Springs, CA.

Galleta Meadows in Borrego Springs, CA.

Most of the sculptures are of animals.

We were on time but most of the rest of the group was already there and seated. Assaggio’s is an Italian restaurant owned and operated by folks of Chinese descent. They had a small menu of Chinese selections but everyone stuck with the Italian menu. Linda and I had garden salads with vinegar and oil dressing and the vegetable linguini. Italian is usually a safe restaurant choice for us in terms of getting something vegan to eat, but we have been surprised several times by how badly prepared our food has been. Assaggio’s wasn’t the worst Italian food we have ever had, but it was not very good. As with Quartzsite and other places we have ventured (or will) the experience of Borrego Springs and Peg Leg were not about dining out; it was about being in this place with these people.

This dinosaur was obviously happy to be in Galleta Meadows.

Most of the sculptures are placed in natural settings.

By the time we were done eating and talking it was almost 6 PM PST and the sun had already dropped behind the very high mountains to the west. There was still some lingering daylight, but we knew it would fade long before we made it back to CA-86. Linda entered the address of our camp back in Quartzsite and we set off for our winter home two hours and 45 minutes away.

A tribute to the iconic vehicle of the west.

Because CA-86 runs in a NW-SE direction, the GPS took us through Mecca, California and onto Box Canyon Road. Box Canyon Road ran through the Mecca Hills Wilderness and we did not encounter another vehicle along its entire length. The road intersected I-10 at Cottonwood Springs Road where we entered Joshua Tree NP early yesterday morning. We lost an hour crossing into Arizona and changing from PST to MST. We pulled into our parking spot at 9:45 PM with just under 500 miles on our trip odometer. It had been long couple of days but we had many new experiences and a lot of fun.

This serpent is over 60 feet long and spans a road (between the second and third hump).

The sculptures are all metal and some of the details are very intricate.

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

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2015/02/07 (S) Bouse, AZ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rocks and flora at Quinn’s Pass, AZ.

2015/02/08 (N) Another Meetup

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

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

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

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

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

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

2015/02/09 (M) A Bright Idea

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2015/02/10 (T) Deionized

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2015/02/11 (W) Update This!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2015/02/06 (F) KOFA NWR Palm Canyon

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Palm Canyon Road entrance to KOFA NWR.

I slept in until 8 AM, got up, put on my sweats, and made a pot of coffee. While that was brewing I turned the TT-400C TPMS monitor on and then adjusted the pressures in the four car tires and checked the passenger side steer tire on the bus. Based on the temperatures it was reporting the monitor appeared to not be picking up the six rear tires on the bus so I plugged the PressurePro repeater in. It is mounted in the passenger side rear corner bedroom cabinet and Darryl Lawrence said it should work fine with the TT-400C monitor. Consumer TPM Systems all operate on the same frequency of 433.92 MHz and the repeater just receives, amplifies, and retransmits signals on that frequency. The sensors have a unique digital identity and send out an encoded digital signal; that’s how the receiver/monitors know which signals to display and ignore the rest.

Linda in the parking lot at the mouth of Palm Canyon, KOFA NWR, AZ.

The north wall of Palm Canyon, KOFA NWR, AZ.

After a breakfast of juice and cinnamon raisin oatmeal Linda went for a walk while the air temperature was still cool. I stayed at the coach and dumped the holding tanks, made up our mixture of a bottle of PineSol with an equal amount of water and a cup of Calgon bath beads. Shake until dissolved and add ~60% to the black tank (via the toilet) and the other 40% to the gray tank via the bathroom and kitchen sinks, including the In-Sink-Erator.

The beginnng of the Palm Canyon trail, KOFA NWR, AZ.

With my chores done I recorded the dump in our notebook and then added the information to our Water Usage spreadsheet. According to the spreadsheet and our notebook it had been 19 days since we last emptied the waste tanks. I knew that wasn’t possible as we normally dump every 9 to 10 days when we are in normal water usage mode, and Marilyn was here for the first half of that interval. Clearly we had forgotten to record a dump 9 or 10 days ago.

The north wall farther into Palm Canyon, KOFA NWR, AZ.

I finished working on some additional draft items for the survey the FMCA National Education Committee wants to send out. I sent them to the committee chair (Gaye) and the member whose items I was revising. We have another phone meeting on Monday and I wanted to get these items out to the committee by tomorrow so the members have time to look at them.

I got an e-mail from Gary at BCM last night advising the editor that I was doing an article on Quartzsite for the February 2015 issue and would have it done by the end of next week. I e-mailed him back last night and then wrote it this morning and e-mailed it to him and Mike, the editor, for review. Although I am no longer employed, I sometimes still work better against a deadline.

Deeper into Palm Canyon approaching the 1/2 mile mark. KOFA NWR, AZ.

After cleaning and waxing the bus and spending a lot of time sitting in front of our computers we wanted to get away from camp and do some sight-seeing. The repair we had done yesterday to the passenger side rear tire on our car seemed to be holding so at 2PM we headed for the King OF Arizona (KOFA) National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) Palm Canyon area about 20 miles south of town.

A lone palm backlit high up on the south wall of Palm Canyon, KOFA NWR, AZ.

This seemed like a good spot to stop and let Linda take my picture for a change. Palm Canyon, KOFA NWR, AZ.

Palm Canyon is an enormous slot in the Kofa Mountains. The canyon is aligned ENE to WSW opening to the WSW so we figured the best light would be in the mid-to-late afternoon. To get there we drove south out of Quartzsite on US-95 about 19 miles to Palm Canyon Road and then east for seven miles on a good gravel roadway. Good is relative, of course; it took as long to drive the 7 miles as it did the 19. The trailhead is at the end of the road, which is the beginning of the canyon. There are also several areas just off the parking/turnaround designated for tent camping, and it would be a spectacular place to pitch a tent. The last mile or so of the road climbs more than you realize until you get to the parking area and are treated to a sweeping view of part of the La Paz Valley that stretches for over 100 miles from Parker on the north end to somewhere north of Yuma on the south end.

Looking WSW back out of Palm Canyon at the La Paz Valley. The trail climbs it goes deeper into the canyon. KOFA NWR, AZ.

There they are! The fan palms of Palm Canyon high up in a shaded crevice on the south wall of the canyon. KOFA NWR, AZ.

The trail is a 1/2 mile hike into the canyon near the floor but to the south of, and above, the central drainage wash. The canyon is named for the California Fan Palm trees that grow there; the only naturally occurring Palm trees in Arizona. There is lots of other vegetation in the canyon, however, and the palms are a bit elusive. About a half mile in there is a small wooden sign with an arrow pointing up to the left at a 45 degree angle. All the sign had on it was the word “PALMS.” And there they were, way up in a narrow crevice. Mind you, some of the trees in this main grove have trunks that are 20 inches in diameter, but the canyon is a big place and the trees are far away from where we were standing. The only wildlife we saw up close were small lizards about 3″ long, 6″ with their tails. We heard and then saw a bird soaring high above the southern edge of the canyon but could not tell what it was.

Delicate colors on the north wall of Palm Canyon in the late afternoon sun. KOFA NWR, AZ.

The light was nice hiking in and got better and better as we hiked out. The trail climbs quite a bit from the parking area, but not steeply in any one place. We took our time and I took a lot of photographs. By the time we got back in our car the sun had slipped behind the Dome Rock Mountain Range that defines the western edge of the La Paz Valley. We had nice colors in every direction but without any clouds we did have a particularly photogenic sunset. By the time we got back to US-95 it was approaching 6:20 PM and we needed our headlights even through the glow along the crest of the mountains continued almost all the way back to town.

Looking back into Palm Canyon as we hike out. KOFA NWR, AZ.

Linda made a green salad with fresh tomatoes and blueberries, dried fruit, and nuts and dressed it with Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette. She heated up a couple of tortillas and used them to make a quesadilla-like thing with Daiya (vegan) cheese, tomato slices, and jalapeño pepper slices. We had a small glass of Franzia Refreshing White wine with dinner and had red grapes for desert.

Before we left for our hike I had unplugged the power supply from my ASUS notebook computer to let it cool off. It seems to me that it runs hot. I plugged it in when we got back and had a notification on the screen that the computer needed to be restarted to complete the installation of updates.

The only wildlife we saw up close in Palm Canyon. KOFA NWR, AZ.

The north wall at the entrance to Palm Canyon in the glow of sunset. KOFA NWR, AZ.

I decided to check my e-mail first and had a couple from Gary, so I called him after we finished dinner and we chatted for about an hour. It sounds like the article I sent him this morning on Quartzsite 2015 won’t run until the March issue, so that will give me a little more time to select and process photos, experience more things here, and possibly extend the article a bit. In the meantime Gary is going to have Stacy proofread all of the articles that are ready plus the one I just sent.

My ASUS laptop keyboard appears to be functioning correctly again so I was reluctant to restart my computer, but the message said it would restart in one day on its own anyway. I guess there’s no time like the present to find out if the machine has a problem. It finished whatever it was it needed to do, powered down, and restarted without a hitch. I then copied all of the photos from our canyon hike to the computer and NAS and started looking at them. I processed a few and then went to bed.

2015/02/01-05 (N-R) Another Month in Q

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2015/02/01 (N) Hola February

Yesterday would have been an excellent day to continue cleaning and waxing the outside of the bus—cool and cloudy without a lot of breeze—but it was also an excellent day for the inside computer work that we both needed/wanted to do. I downloaded the free version of the Simple:Press forum WordPress plug-in the day before yesterday and was going to make a priority of installing it today on the FMCA Freethinkers website I have been developing until the activation of the Jetpack Site Management feature caused the admin panel (app) to crash. We have had a problem for a while with one member who was unable (or unwilling) to interact appropriately online via our e-mail reflector. The reflector does not require a login and does not have any way to moderate discussions or block/remove posts, so our options as a chapter were very limited. A WordPress-based forum would give us all of those features.

I had an e-mail reply from support@ipower.com indicating that the Wordfence plugin had caused the problem. They needed the answer to the security question in order to authenticate my support request and fix the problem. Bob Pelc provided me with that information which I supplied back to ipower.com. Later in the day I got an e-mail indicating that the problem was resolved and I was, in fact, able to log in without any problems. The e-mail said the Wordfence plugin had caused the crash and that they disabled it, but after I logged in it was still activated. I did not, however, take the time to check if it was functioning correctly. I also did not install the Simple:Press forum at this time.

For breakfast Linda improvised a potato tofu scramble with nutritional yeast, garlic, and other seasonings. It was a hearty and flavorful start to the day. After breakfast I called Jim A. back to discuss the FMCA seminar listing categorization document we have been working on.

I settled in to work at my computer on the consolidated blog post for November 10-16 while Linda settled in to work on accounting for the bakery. She is also approaching the time of year when she has to pull tax returns together. She uses Turbo Tax and needs an updated version each year. The products she needed were on sale through Amazon Prime. She purchased and download them, which also placed them in her Amazon software library, and they installed and opened without a hitch.

I got an e-mail from Harvey Carter (AC8NO), president of the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC), asking me to update the officer listing on the club website. I took care of that and also changed that contact form (Contact Us page) to e-mail him instead of former president Mike Sharpe (WX8H).

By 2:30 PM I was tired of sitting in front of my computer so I changed into my work clothes and spent an hour trying to clean and wax a couple of windows on the bus. The passenger side, which faces south, was so hot I cloud not touch it for very long, so I worked on the north side in the shade.

Jim/Flo L. and Jim/Barb B. disassembled the Select Comfort air mattress we had put in the park model trailer and divided up the parts. We were going to donate it to the Salvation Army but did not get it done fast enough. Jim B. would like the pump and controllers but Butch and Fonda need them to replace the defective unit on the mattress in their guest bedroom. Since that is where I sleep when I am there, it is in my best interest to give it to them.

We invited all of our neighbors to come over for happy hour at 4 PM. Barb B. came over with a glass of wine at 4:20 PM, so I poured a glass for Linda and me. Jim B. was taking a nap as were Butch and Fonda. (Hey; retirement is hard work!). Butch and Fonda eventually shook the cobwebs out and came over. Jim and Flo L. arrived but busied themselves with dinner preparations. They were joining Jim/Barb B. for a belated Christmas dinner. Jim B. eventually awoke and Barb left to join the other three for dinner. Fonda left just before 6 PM to go to church but returned a few minutes later. Apparently the evening service had been cancelled because of the Super Bowl. She and Butch visited as the sun set and eventually it got chilly enough that we all decided to go inside.

I e-mailed Chuck Spera and my long-time friend John (J. C.) Armbruster earlier in the day but had not gotten responses from either of them by bedtime. During the evening I had e-mails going back and forth with Steve Willey regarding the upcoming informal FMCA Freethinker gathering at the Liar Peg Leg Smith Monument boondocking area in Borrego Springs, California. I also e-mailed Jim Ellmore regarding the same event.

A typical sunset in Quartzsite, Arizona as seen from our campsite on the north end of town.

2015/02/02 (M) Market Day

The last 24 hours have brought into focus why we are here for the winter. It will be sunny and 80 degrees F today. Detroit got 16.7 inches of snow from the storm that hit over the weekend, with 12 inches in Ann Arbor and similar amounts in Dexter, Howell, and Brighton. When we checked this morning it was 7 degrees at home and going up to a high of 14. Yeah, we are not missing that.

Breakfast was the bland store-bought bulk granola we have had to eat since running out of Linda’s homemade granola some weeks ago. I wish we could carry a five-month supply of her granola; it’s that good. Right after breakfast Linda started putting together menu ideas and a shopping list while I reviewed the latest seminar listing from Jim A. and e-mailed it back to him. He called later to discuss it briefly. I started working on yet another consolidated blog post for 17-23 Nov 2014 and did that until I could not stand to sit any longer. The antidote for was go outside and work on cleaning and waxing the rear cap of the bus.

Butch and Fonda left around 9 AM and drove to Parker to go shopping at Wal-Mart. Back home they shop at the Wal-Mart in Logansport and are familiar with the items there. Not long after they left Linda drove to Blythe, California to do our grocery shopping for the week. Of the supermarkets available to us we prefer the Albertson’s in Blythe, followed by the Smart & Final Extra at the same intersection.

Butch and Fonda returned from shopping and so did Jim and Barb. Butch asked if I had ordered the coil for the MAC solenoid air valve that controls the a-c shutters behind the front bumper. I hadn’t, so I took a break from cleaning and waxing the outside of the bus and called MAC Valve to order a replacement coil for the 111B601BAAA solenoid valve. (I still have the old valve but I do not think I have it with us in the bus.)

Jim L. stopped by with some very fresh grapefruit and we got to talking about automotive detailing. He recommended Finesse from 3M for polishing paint without leaving marks. He said it works so well that the paint looks “wet” when you are done. Butch had also suggested that I look at the Cyclo 5 dual head orbiting buffer/polisher. Apparently this machine can finish paint with no swirl marks.

The FMCA Freethinker website /WP-admin/ panel was back up and running. I logged in and checked the plugins. They were all there but they had ALL been deactivated. Tech support at ipower.com had indicated that they were going to disable the Wordfence plugin. I re-activated most of them, but not all, and specifically did not re-activate the Jetpack plugin. It is a large, feature rich plugin and the only thing I use is the Carousel feature to manage native WordPress image galleries. Unfortunately I need that feature and have not found another plugin that does what I need.

I worked for most of the evening on the consolidated blog post. By the time I finished it was too late to start selecting and editing photos, so I will do that tomorrow if I have time.

2015/03/03 (T) Wax On, Wax Off

I knew there was something else I was supposed to do yesterday, but I could not remember what it was. I sometimes put “tasks” on my calendar, but that does not help if do not check it. I remembered this morning what it was; I needed to call Sunset Sportswear in South Lyon, Michigan and follow up on an e-mail I sent last Thursday regarding our order for personalized SLAARC jackets. I made that call and Pam took our credit card information. Barb handles sales but had not made it in yet due to the snow. Sunset Sportswear was closed yesterday because of the storm so if I had remembered to call them it would have been for naught. Things often work out like that.

I also got an e-mail from the Escapees RV Club regarding the upcoming Escapade rally. It indicated we could extend our stay until Sunday noon. I called Lou Petkus, the head staff photographer for the Escapade, to let him know. The rally ends on Thursday with normal departure on Friday and staff departure on Saturday. Lou is trying to arrange a photography field trip for Saturday so the fact that anyone can stay until Sunday should help with participation. I called the SKP headquarters and booked the extra night.

I confirmed which RV Park Lou and Val will be in on March 5th and I think we will try to get in there as well. That location will position us close to the rally venue and allow us to caravan in together and park together. (We have to be in by 11AM on the 6th.) That, in turn, should make our staff photography work more convenient. We plan to hang out (dry camp) with RVillage founder Curtis Coleman for a couple of nights before this at his rental home near Casa Grande, which will put us a lot closer to Tucson than we are here in Quartzsite.

We had also mentioned to Lou and Val at Quartzfest that we were thinking of heading to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument after the Escapade. They had been discussing it and decided they would like to go there as well so we will probably caravan there with them. After OPCNM we plan to head to Big Bend NP (BBNP) in Texas and Lou and Val would also like to go there. That is a three day drive for us, and we may take six or seven days to get there depending on where we might stop and what there is to see long the way. Whether we travel together or separate will be determined later. Our friend, Mara, and another women from the WINs are also headed to BBNP sometime in March and we have tentatively agreed to meet up with them if we can work out the timing.

I checked my e-mail and had a reply from Jetpack tech support at WordPress.com. “Happiness Engineer” Jeremy said that Wordfence has been known to cause issues with the Jetpack plugin. He acknowledged that Wordfence is a powerful and important plugin but can be very aggressive in protecting websites. Given that Wordfence appears to have caused the crash of the FMCAA Freethinkers WordPress /WP-admin/ Jeremy said I probably did not need to reinstall the Jetpack plugin. I filled out a support ticket yesterday for this issue on the Wordfence website as I have a premium (paid) membership. They acknowledged the support ticket right away but an actual response will likely take longer.

I had all of these communications chores done by 11 AM and decided to continue cleaning and waxing the outside of the bus. I started with the rear, as it was still in the shade, and finished the lower half. It was tedious as that is the engine hatch and it has numerous horizontal indentations that run the full width. These indentations are open on the inside top for airflow and have screens to keep things from getting in (like fingers).

Another view of the sunset from our campsite in Quartzsite, AZ.

I continued on around to the driver side of the bus which faces north. The temperature this afternoon got up to 80 degrees F, and it was very hot in the sun, but it was pleasantly cool in the shade of the bus. It was near perfect conditions for the work I was doing. I worked most of the afternoon and did not quite get the back half of the bus cleaned and waxed. A couple of bay doors and I will be past the half way point on that side.

I am going to try to work on this at least a few hours every day, otherwise it will never get done and this is an ideal place to work on it as long as I am not working in the sun. The south facing passenger side is going to be more of a challenge and I will have to limit my work to the morning before the body panels heat up.

UPS showed up today with my coil for the MAC valve which turned out to be an entire new valve. Rather than try to remove the solenoid coil I may just install the whole valve. UPS also brought Fonda’s new sewing machine. It only weighs 13 pounds.

Butch got back from a rock hunting field trip late in the afternoon and we stood around chatting as an amazing sunset developed around us. As I have mentioned before, sunsets here are often 360 degree events and this one surrounded us with color before finally fading into another starry night.

Linda made a wonderful dish for dinner last night and we had it again this evening. She pan-grilled polenta and served it on a bed of dark leafy greens topped with puttanesca sauce made from scratch.

After dinner I selected photographs for my November 17 – 23, 2014 blog post and processed them. I uploaded the text to our WordPress site and then uploaded, captioned, and integrated each photo in turn. I also had to enter all of the tags, which I figure out as I read through the post. If there is one thing I would like to have at this point it is the ability to highlight key words and phrases in my Word document and have them automatically become tags when the text is uploaded.

By the time I published the post and went to bed to finish this one it was midnight. At eight minutes after midnight MST I was one hour into my 63rd year as I was born on this date at 00:08 in the Central Time Zone, where eight minutes past midnight happened an hour ago.

2015/02/04 (W) 63 and Counting

I finished my blog post for yesterday late last night and e-mailed it to myself at eight minutes after midnight, the hour and minute of my birth, or so I have always been told. Linda and the cats were all asleep and I observed the moment in quiet solitude. As I noted at the end of yesterday’s post I was actually an hour late in my observance as we are currently in the Mountain Time Zone and I was born in the Central Time Zone. But it was the thought that counted.

Sixty-three is not a milestone birthday anniversary, other than making it that far. On my 60th birthday I became eligible to retire, and did so four months later. On my 62nd birthday I became eligible to start drawing social security, but didn’t. On my 65th birthday I will become eligible for Medicare. The year I turn 66 Linda will apply for Social Security benefits and immediately suspend them. I will be eligible for my full Social Security benefit but will not apply for it. I will apply for the spousal benefit instead. Our monthly Social Security benefits continue to increase by 8% per year until age 70, a solid and guaranteed return, so Linda will start taking her benefits then and I will file for, and take, my benefits when I turn 70.

Having thought through the complexities of birthdays, we had breakfast and then I got to work cleaning and waxing the outside of the bus. My plan was to finish the driver side but not spend all day at it. As it turned out, I spent most of the day at it, taking breaks to check e-mail. It is just slow work, especially since so much of it has to be done on a step ladder. I have no idea how many trips I made up and down that ladder, but it was a lot. It is only a seven foot step ladder so I have to stand near the top to reach the top of the sides which are over 12 feet from the ground. I cannot reach very far to the side either, so I work from one side of the ladder then climb down and climb up the other side and work from there. I then climb down and move the ladder about three feet and do it all again; over, and over, and over. But as Long as I keep going it eventually gets done. I am, however, seriously considering getting a Cyclo 5 dual head orbiting buffer/polisher. There is simply too much bus to do this by hand. I am also considering getting a platform to put between two ladders and/or a four-wheel elevated work platform to use in the barn if/when we get it built.

I got a call from our daughter wishing me a happy birthday and had a nice chat with her. I asked if Katie had made a final college selection but she is not done with interviews yet. Perhaps we will know in a few weeks where she is headed in the fall.

Yesterday Linda invited all of our camping neighbors to come over today at 4 PM for happy hour to celebrate my birthday. In preparation she spent part of the day making cupcakes with chocolate frosting. When she wasn’t cooking she did accounting and tax return work for Butch and Fonda. Around 3 PM she prepared bruschetta using what was left of a loaf of Barry’s Basic Bread and the puttanesca sauce she made a couple of nights ago. Larry/Sandy, Jim/Barb, and Butch/Fonda all brought chairs and beverages of their choice. Butch and Fonda brought chips, salsa, and hummus and the peanut and dried fruit mix they make. We sat around talking until the sun set at which point the air temperature cooled off and we all retreated to our rigs.

I got a call from our son during our happy hour and excused myself for a few minutes to chat with him. It was 7:40 PM back in Ann Arbor and Madeline was getting ready for bed. I got to “chat” with her and she wished me a happy birthday. With encouragement from her mom she asked me “How is Arizona?” I told her it was very nice here.

We skipped lunch today and did not have dinner because we filled up on happy hour snacks. Linda played online word games while I started assembling the consolidated blog post for November 24 – 30. She turned on the MiFi and trundled off to bed to watch an episode of Downton Abby on her iPad. I finished editing the post and selected two photos to go with it. When I checked I found that I did not have photos for most of the days covered by the post. I thought about uploading it but decided against it as it still takes time to upload the text, upload and insert the pictures, and create all of the tags and I was too tired to maintain the needed concentration. Somewhere in there I read through a reply from Chuck Spera and sent him the next volley in our e-mail conversation.

Overall it was a good 63rd birthday. Given our winter travel lifestyle I face the interesting prospect of celebrating my birthday somewhere different every year for many years to come.

Our fellow campers gathered by our bus for my 63rd birthday happy hour. L-2-R: Sandy, Larry, Barb, Jim, Butch, Fonda, me. Photo by Linda (not shown).

2015/02/05 (R) A Screwy Tire

The overnight lows are now dropping into the upper 40’s at night and the coach cools off just enough that I turn the heat on in the front of the bus while I make coffee in the morning. Soon enough the sun starts heating up the coach and we are pulling the accordion shades down to keep it out and opening windows and turning on ceiling exhaust fans to draw cool air in. A couple of days ago we finally put the awnings out on the south facing passenger side of the coach. Between the patio awning and the bedroom awning they shade more than half of the upper portion of the coach and help keep the interior temperatures in check. We have not had them out much, however, because of the somewhat persistent winds in the La Paz Valley.

After breakfast I wanted to setup the TireTraker TT-400C TPMS. Once I started I would need to install the sensors on all 13 tires. In order to install the sensor on the spare tire in the car I had to empty out the back so I could get to the tire. Linda was helping me and noticed a screw in the passenger side rear tire. It was right at the edge of the tread but not technically in the side wall. The tire was holding pressure but when I started to back the screw out it started to hiss so I screwed it back in. Nuts.

Linda got online to look for tire repair shops in Quartzsite. The first three numbers we tried were out of service and the Love’s Truck Stop only repaired big tires, not small ones, so I called Jim Liebherr to see if he knew of some place in town. Flo answered the phone and could not locate Jim so I asked for a return phone call. Butch then offered to drive me downtown where he thought he remembered seeing a tire shop. As we were pulling out of our camp it occurred to Butch that the RV Pit Stop, just south of us on Central Avenue, might do tire repairs. Before we even got that far we saw the sign for Best Auto and Tires. We have walked or driven past this place dozens of times but never paid any attention to the fact they sold and serviced tires. At the time we did not care.

They said they would have to see the tire so we drove back to camp and I drove back in the car. They said they could repair it properly with an internal patch and they would get right on it if I wanted to wait for it. $14. Deal. I could easily have walked back to camp from there but I was back with the car within an hour. If the tire had not been repairable we would have had to take it off the car and use Butch’s Chevy Suburban to drive it to Yuma or Lake Havasu City where there are Discount Tire Locations.

Jim L. returned my earlier phone call while I was waiting for the tire. He and Flo use a dentist in Los Algodones, Mexico and are very satisfied with the service and price. I have a tooth that is bothering me just a bit and was giving some serious consideration to making an appointment with someone in Los Algodones.

I installed the batteries in our new TT-400C sensors and programmed the baseline pressures into the monitor (receiver). I then installed the sensors on the bus and car tires, linking each one to the monitor as I went. Programming the baseline pressures first is the easier way to install the system. In setup mode the monitor displays each tire position in turn. While the position is displayed a sensor is screwed onto the valve stem. The application of pressure to the sensor “wakes it up.” When the sensor starts transmitting the monitor associates it with the displayed tire position. After exiting setup mode only the programmed tire positions display on the monitor.

In addition to the overall setup procedure there are several things I like better about the TT-400C system compared to the PressurePro system we have had since the 2008 FMCA national rally in St. Paul, Minnesota. A major one is that the baseline pressures are programmed into the monitor. On the PP-TPMS the baseline pressures are determined by the pressure in the tire at the time the sensor is put on. Another thing I like is that the TT-TPMS monitor is powered by rechargeable batteries and is not plugged in when in use. That makes it much more convenient to move it between the bus and the car, but especially to carry it around while installing and associating the sensors to wheel positions. Finally, I like the sensors, which are much smaller and only weigh 0.4 ounces each.

Linda helped me reload the back of the Element and sort through all of the “stuff” that was “stuffed” in the glove box and the passenger side dashboard trays. (When was the last time someone actually stored gloves in an automotive glove box?). With everything sorted out and repackaged in ZipLock bags I stored it back in the glove box and locked up the car.

Linda spent part the morning working on accounting and tax returns for Butch and Fonda and talking on the phone to Dave, the controller at Metropolitan Baking. I got a call later from Jim Ammenheiser and then did a final proofreading of our Education Committee recommendation to FMCA staff for how to restructure the categorization and listing of seminars and activities in the national rally programs.

We took a break and had the last two cupcakes from yesterday with some vegan Mocha Almond Fudge coconut “ice cream.” We were supposed to have these last night for my birthday but we were not hungry after snacking at the happy hour birthday gathering. Linda then went for a walk. Linda got me a birthday card and a towel with an elastic edged hole for my head. I tend to get food on my shirts when I eat and the towel is basically an adult bib that can be easily laundered.

Our fresh water tank was a bottle cap shy of empty so I filled it. It usually takes about 50 minutes to fill the tank starting from empty so I set the timer on my smartphone for 40 minutes. When it signaled me to check on the progress the tank was already overflowing. (It has a vent tube on top of the tank that runs through the floor of the bay.) I don’t think I wasted more than a few gallons of soft water so it should not throw my water usage and softening calculations off by much. The good news was that the post-fill hardness test showed the water coming out of the softener at 0.0 to 0.5 gpg total hardness (0 to 10 ppm.) That was better than the reading I got right after I recharged the softener, so perhaps it still had some residual salt in it initially.

At 4 PM I was getting ready to upload a blog post when the UPS truck showed up and dropped off two boxes for me. It was the Chemical Guys microfiber products I had ordered recently, including two microfiber auto detailing aprons. Butch returned a few minutes later with a small package for me. It was the lens hood I had ordered for my Sony zoom lens and it had been mailed USPS. He also had eight (8) Full River 6V L16 AGM batteries. I helped him unload them from the Suburban onto the concrete pad on the driver side of their bus. Fonda emptied out the driver’s side of their battery bay and she and I then moved the batteries to the bay where Butch positioned them. He left them in their boxes and will install them when they get back to Twelve Mile.

At 5:15 PM I finally got around to uploading the consolidated blog post for the last week of November (2014). I then started thinking about what to do with my December 2014 posts. As of today I am still 67 posts behind and putting up daily posts is not realistic. In looking through my photos I was surprised to find that I took very few from the time we left the house until we arrived in Quartzsite. I decided to do consolidated posts for Dec 1 – 4 (Twelve Mike, IN to Alvarado, TX), 5 – 8 (visit with Donn Barnes), and 9 – 12 (travel from Alvarado to Quartzsite, AZ). I have more pictures for the rest of the month, so I will have to figure out what makes sense. I compiled the posts for December 1 – 4, selected and processed one photo, uploaded it, selected the categories, and entered all of the tags. I posted it and then realized I wanted to edit the URLs slightly so I logged back in and found that I was unable to type anything.

It took me a while to figure out that the problem was the built-in keyboard on my ASUS G750JM ROG notebook computer. I got it at the end of April last year, so I have only had it for eight months. I decided to run a full scan using ESET Smart Security since I could do that with just a mouse and the Bluetooth mouse was working just fine. It found 18 threats and dealt with 16 of them. I then ran CCleaner, after which I enabled the onscreen keyboard. Although intended for use on touchscreen computers, at least I could type things into a search box using my mouse.

I found some references to similar problems on answers.microsoft.com with the suggestion to examine the keyboard device properties. If it indicated the device was installed and working correctly it was probably not a Windows 8.1 problem. The other suggestion was to try an external keyboard. If that worked it would confirm a keyboard hardware problem. I had already gotten my Gigaware wireless keyboard out so I plugged in the USB dongle, turned on the keyboard, and voilà, I could type again!

Another post on the Windows forum listed website links for ASUS support so I started following those. One ASUS website wanted the serial number of my computer, which I had to get off of a tag on the bottom of the case with really small type. Once I had that entered correctly I was able to go to a download page with 81 files available, including bios and chipset code. There were two files that seemed to have something to do with the keyboard. By 1:15 AM I had a half dozen tabs open in two different browsers with no definitive understanding of what had happened or what to do to fix it. I then realized that the Shift Lock key on the keyboard was illuminated and I could toggle it on and off. I could also toggle the Number Lock, so I tried typing and the keyboard was working once again. That, however, did not give me any confidence that it would continue to do so. I decided I was not going to shut the computer down for fear of not being able to log back in on startup. I was not about to start downloading and installing anything at that hour so I went to bed tired, annoyed, and, frankly, a bit discouraged by this unwelcomed turn of events.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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2015/01/08 (R) Up On The Rooftop

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Hi Jolly Daze Parade. Quartzsite, AZ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2015/01/11 (N) Swimsuit In January

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Linda makes her selections at the Quartzsite Farmers Market.

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

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

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

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

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

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

2015/01/13 (T) Geekiness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2015/01/14 (W) SKP Happy Hour

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2014/10/08-15 GLCC and Bus Work

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2014/10/08 (W) Rally Ho!

Today was a travel day so I had a light breakfast and went to the Small Town Brew for a cup of coffee rather than create a mess making my own. I donated $2 for this cup and did not have a refill so the three cups I consumed over the last two days averaged out to $1 each. I spent most of the morning helping Butch investigate possible routes for the engine preheat plumbing for their new International Thermal Research (ITR) Oasis Combi diesel-fired hydronic heating system. I also adjusted the front bus tire pressures and all four of the car tire pressures.

As noon approached I switched to departure mode. I changed out of my work clothes into something cleaner and more comfortable for driving, finished packing all the stuff I had in the guest bedroom, and loaded it into the bus or the car. I targeted a 1 PM departure. Butch had to go to town so we said farewell until Friday and he took off. By the time I started the bus, pulled it across the street, moved the car over, hooked it up for towing, and checked the lights (with Fonda’s help) it was closer to 1:30 PM than 1:00 PM.

The drive to Elkhart was pleasant and uneventful. The speedometer sat on zero for the first quarter of the trip, bounced around for the second quarter, indicated 85 MPH (max speed) for the third quarter, and settled in to something like the correct speed for the final quarter. This is the way it had behaved for quite some time before it got unplugged so this confirmed that it did not work correctly and needed to be replaced.

I took SR-16 east to US-31 north to US-20 east to CR-17 north. CR-17 becomes MI-217, the Michiana Parkway, which ends at US-12. I took that west to Old M-204 west and followed it past Phoenix Paint back into Indiana where it becomes SR-19 south. I turned east on CR-4 and a mile later turned into the entrance to Elkhart Campground on the south side of the road. This route is at least 15 miles longer than necessary. There is an exit for SR-19 north off of US-20, which is a much more direct route, but requires driving through the heart of Elkhart. There was major road construction on this stretch of SR-19 the last couple of years, including a bridge, with narrow lanes and weight restrictions. That work is all completed, and the road is much better now, but it is still a more urban route with stop lights, turns, and traffic.

Our coach (front, right) at the FMCA GLCC Surplus & Salvage Rally, Elkhart CG (Elkhart, IN).

I checked in to the campground and then got parked in my assigned site. I was one of the last coaches to arrive. I went through my arrival routine and got the coach setup to use before visiting with fellow GLCC chapter members, some of whom I had never met. I chatted briefly with Michele Henry from Phoenix Paint to confirm her availability to work on a BCM article later in the evening and then went to Martins supermarket to get a salad for dinner. The Martin’s supermarket on SR-19 at CR-4 has a really nice salad bar and I made a big salad with lots of ingredients, all vegan of course.

I took my salad over to the meeting room at 6 PM and had dinner with the group. I was expecting Michele at 6:30 PM so I excused myself and went back to my coach. She showed up a little after 7 PM. We worked until almost 10 PM and managed to go through the entire article. I did not have the photos on my new computer so the selection, processing, and captioning of images will occur later.

2014/10/09 (R) GLCC Surplus and Salvage

I went over for coffee around 8 AM without eating breakfast first. By 9 AM plans had been made for car pools to visit the various RV surplus and salvage businesses in the area. I went back to the coach and had a grapefruit for breakfast and then spent the morning taking care of e-mail and uploading blog posts starting with September 19th.

By noon I was tired of staring at my computer so I turned my attention to the speedometer. After removing the dashboard cover I figured out a socket and ratchet combination that allowed me to remove the two Nylok nuts from the back of the instrument. With the retaining bracket removed the old instrument slipped out the front of the dashboard.

Rear view of new VDO speedometer with custom adaptor cables.

I needed to redo the wiring so I got out my electrical tools. I also tested to voltage to verify that the lighting circuit was 24VDC. It was, and the actual instrument runs on either 12 or 24, so it didn’t care. The existing connectors for the old instrument appeared to be the same 4-pin flat connectors used in personal computers for providing power to hard disk drives, CD drives, and other peripheral components. I checked online and found that Michiana PC was located behind Menard’s a short distance away on the other side of the toll road. I got an adapter cable with the proper connectors on it and then stopped at Menard’s for two different spade connectors. As long as I was out driving around I stopped at Phoenix Paint to pick up coupons for Marco’s Pizza. Since I had to drive past Martin’s on the way back to the campground I stopped and bought groceries.

The new VDO speedmeter temporarily connected.

Back at the coach I put the groceries away and got back to work on the speedometer project. I cut leads from the old instrument light wiring as I needed the plug. I then cut the unneeded end off the computer power cable. I wired the lighting connector, spade connectors, and jumpers. I then wired the instrument connector spade lugs to the computer power cable. When all the wiring preparation was done I attached all of the wires except the two for the signal (#16 & #20) and connected the cables to mating chassis connectors. I temporarily set the speedometer in dashboard hole, turn the chassis batteries on, and then turned the light switch on for the dashboard lights. The speedometer lights worked, so I turned the ignition to ‘ON’ without starting the engine. The gauge needle swept up to max and back to zero and the odo displayed 0.0.

I turned the ignition off and disconnected the chassis batteries. I then pulled the instrument out of the dashboard and disconnected the two cables. I got the H3-40 Service Manual out and figured out which wire was the + signal (#16) and which one was the ground (#20). With the cables protruding through the mounting hole from the rear I pushed the spade terminals fully on and reconnected the cables. It was getting to be late afternoon by this point and I decided to leave the finally assembly for tomorrow.

The new VDO speedometer (above & right of center).

I took a shower and shaved and had plenty of hot water as the Aqua-Hot continued to cycle automatically. I prepared an Annie’s Kung Pao noodle bowl for dinner and took it over to the meeting room at 6 PM. I stayed there until 8 PM enjoying bus chat with a small group of chapter members that I know well.

The new VDO speedometer installed in the old hole.

Several members developed problems with their BCM subscriptions over the summer. Pat Lintner gave me a flash drive so I could provide him with the issues he did not receive. I took care of that back at the coach and then continued to upload blog posts and respond to e-mails. I was two days behind on writing blog posts and stayed up until I was caught up which made for a very late night.

2014/10/10 (F) Bus Business

I was up way too late last night catching up on writing drafts of blog posts for the last few days. Linda sent a text message this morning at 6 AM that I read at 7:30 AM letting me know that she was starting the drive to Elkhart. I went over to the meeting room at 8 AM to have coffee and Linda showed up at 9 AM. We visited with the other rally attendees until 10 AM and then went back to our coach to have granola for breakfast.

L-to-R: GLCC secretary Tami Bruner, Newsletter editor Scott Bruner, and Treasurer Linda Fay.

At 10:30 AM we drove to Phoenix Paint to deliver some additional copies of Bus Conversion Magazine to Michele and visited with her and Roxanne for a while. Josh was supposed to come look at our coach in the afternoon but had to make an unexpected trip to Chicago. Michele called him and got him rescheduled for tomorrow morning between 9 AM and noon.

Before returning to the campground we stopped at Martin’s supermarket for salad toppings and Radio Shack for a miniature “grain of wheat” light bulb. Radio Shack did not appear to have the bulb I was looking for, but I learned later in the day from Butch that the bulb I need comes with two bare wire leads that fold over to form the contacts.

GLCC members gathered for the Friday evening dinner and business meeting.

When we got back to the coach we were going to have lunch but I got busy giving a tour of our bus tour and then touring the late 1990’s MCI 102D Vantare conversion parked next to us. Butch and Fonda arrived (in their car) while all of that was going on. We visited for a while and then they took off for Bontrager’s RV Surplus store.

Many of the GLCC members were away shopping for surplus bargains so we hung around our coach where I worked at my computer and Linda read until she got tired and laid down briefly. I was thinking about lying down too when Pat Lintner stopped by and then Butch/Fonda returned. Before we knew what had happened to the afternoon it was getting to be dinner time. Linda made our dinner salads and we went over to the meeting room a little before 6 PM where we enjoyed our salads in the company of our friends. President Larry Baker conducted a brief business meeting at the conclusion of which Linda was elected to another 2-year term as chapter Treasurer and I was elected to a 2-year term as chapter President. Dean Chipman was elected chapter Vice-President and Tami Bruner was elected chapter Secretary. Pat Lintner stayed on as National Director and Frank Griswold as Alternate National Director.

L-to-R: GLCC National Director Pat Lintner talks to newly elected President Bruce Fay and members Charles Martin and Ed Roelle.

Butch and Fonda had to get back to their home to tend to their dogs and left shortly after the voting was concluded. We visited for quite a while with the chapter members before returning to our coach for the evening where we had a glass of wine and went to bed.

2014/10/11 (S) Transfers

The day dawned clear and cold with the morning low temperature in Elkhart at 32 degrees F and frost on the ground and vehicles. We went over for coffee at 8 AM and chatted with fellow chapter members while they had breakfast. Josh was supposed to come look at our coach between 9AM and noon but called to see if late afternoon would be OK. It was fine with me and he agreed to call before he came over.

We returned to our coach and had granola for breakfast. We spent the morning chatting with folks, including the Thornton’s, who stopped by to pay their dues. We had transferred some things to Linda’s car yesterday and transferred some more things this morning. By noon Linda was packed and ready to leave for home. She texted me later to let me know she had stopped in Ann Arbor to visit family and shop at Whole Foods Market before getting back to our house.

Ed Roelle and Marty Caverly came to our coach to listen to our Aqua-Hot. Ed agreed that it should not be producing any visible exhaust after initial startup and thought a likely cause was worn bearings in the blower shaft causing reduced rpm which resulted in reduced air flow which resulted in a rich fuel/air mixture. Ed and Marty both thought the unit sounded normal for a unit with worn bearings.

After looking at the Aqua-Hot I found former chapter President Larry Baker at his coach and we transferred quite a lot of “presidential stuff” to my car. He had been collecting and transporting this “stuff” for the last six years and was all too eager to be rid of it.

Josh called at 3:45 PM to let me know he would be at my coach around 4:45 PM. I made a quick run to Radio Shack to check again for the “grain of wheat” 12 VDC bulb, but they did not have it in stock. Josh arrived a little before 5 PM and we discussed our desired interior renovation for over an hour during which time he also took measurements. By the time we wrapped up our discussion most of the rally attendees had left for dinner at a local restaurant. I called Linda and then had dinner in the coach; a simple green salad, a roll with garlic vegan butter spread, and grapes.

I decided to top off our fresh water tank while there was still some daylight rather than doing it in the morning when it was forecast to be cold. After the tank was full I shut off the water, disconnected and drained the hoses, and stowed them in our fresh water tub. I removed and stowed the pressure regulator and water softener. I then turned each of the three Aqua-Hot loops on, one at a time, to see if I could figure out which circuit included the heat exchangers in the water bay and front storage bay. As best I could determine, the bays are plumbed into the bedroom circuit. I would have preferred to have them plumbed in with the bathroom as we like the bedroom cool for sleeping but want to be able to keep the bays warm enough to avoid freezing.

Scott Bruner and his dad, Richard, were out so I chatted with them about the Aqua-Hot. The Marin’s had a propane camp fire going at their rig next to ours so we went over there to talk for a while. I finally got cold and went in for the night around 9:45 PM. I uploaded the blog posts for the last three days of September and then went to bed and worked on this one.

2014/10/12 (N) Arduino SBC

I got up around 7 AM, got dressed, and spent an hour packing clothes, computers, and other things that would eventually be transferred to the car for the trip home. I went to the meeting room at 8 AM to have one cup of coffee and socialize with the GLCC chapter members who had come over for breakfast. There are special names for breakfast on the last morning of a rally. The one I like best is “hitch up breakfast.” Whether you have a motorhome towing a car or a car/truck pulling a trailer, most RVers have something that has to be hitched up for towing before they can depart. It is also a distant but quaint reference to hitching up a team of horses to a wagon; the original RV having one to six horsepower.

I do not normally have coffee or breakfast on days when I have to drive the bus, but the bus driving portion of my day was only going to be two hours and I would not be pulling out until sometime between 10 and 11 AM. Those who wanted to eat breakfast were done by 9 AM and a crew of women busied themselves cleaning the kitchen and re-packing the supplies. Some of those supplies were destined for my car which was already connected to the back of our bus, so everything got loaded into Pat and Vicky Lintner’s car and they brought it over to my site and I transferred it to my vehicle.

I dumped the waste water holding tanks and stowed the drain hose. By 9:45 AM I was packed and had the bus and car ready to travel except for a few last minute details. I joined a small group of guys for some final conversation as several coaches pulled out. I was in a site directly behind Scott and Tami Bruner and although I could have left before them it was going to be a lot easier to wait until they pulled out, which they did shortly after 10 AM.

I went through the final steps of preparing the car to be towed, turned the coach chassis batteries on, turned the shore power off, disconnected the shore power line, and stowed it. I had opened all the air valves earlier, so I secured all of the bay’s, locked the entrance door (from the inside), and started the engine. While it was building air pressure for the suspension and brakes I called Linda at 10:29 AM to let her know I would be underway shortly and then called Butch. I did not get an answer at Butch and Fonda’s house so I called Butch on his cell phone. He had misunderstood my travel timing and indicated that they might not be home yet when I arrived at their place.

I pulled out of my site at 10:30 AM and reversed the route I had taken on Wednesday, going east on CR-4 (IN) to SR-16 (IN) north, to Old M-204 (MI) eastbound to US-12 (MI) east to M-217 (MI) south (the Michiana Parkway), which became CR-17 (IN) southbound. I left CR-17 and got on westbound US-20 over to US-31 south which I stayed on all the way to SR-16 west towards Twelve Mile. I had a call from Pat Lintner while I was driving regarding the dates for the 2015 Surplus and Salvage rally which will be in mid-September.

I arrived in Twelve Mile at 12:15 PM. I got the car detached and moved it out of the way. While I was doing that Fonda got home from church. After tending to their two dogs (Rascal and Daffy) she helped me back the bus across the street into its parking spot next to their bus. I plugged in the shore power cord to get AC power to the house systems but left the bus systems on temporarily so I could reprogram the new VDO speedometer.

On the drive from Elkhart the speedometer, which had not been calibrated, was indicating just under 8 MPH when I was traveling 60 MPH according to my GPS. That meant the signal from the Allison ATEC transmission computer was putting out fewer pulses per mile than the default speedometer program. For some reason I thought the default might be 200,000 PPM so I computed the ratio between actual and indicated speed and divided 200,000 by that number which gave me 26,316. I programmed that in using the PULSE mode but would not be able to test it until later in the week. If the indicated speed is in the ballpark I will use the ADJUST mode to manually move the pointer to indicate the same speed as the GPS. There is also a CALIBRATE mode that counts the pulses over a one mile distance and then programs that into the instrument. That is the most accurate way to calibrate the speedometer/odometer if you have someplace safe to do it with accurate mile markers.

With that done, I turned off the chassis batteries and the unneeded air circuits in the front bay but left the valve for the engine air accessories turned on. I typically do this when I leave it with someone in case they have to start it. I turned the Aqua-Hot electric heating element on and turned on the bedroom thermostat but set the temperature to a cooler setting. The heat exchangers in the water bay and front storage bay appear to be tied-in with the bedroom heat exchanger.

I transferred stuff from the coach to car the car and by 1:25 PM I was ready to roll, but Butch called and said he was almost back to the house so I waited for him. He had made progress on the Wiremold in the bus kitchen and wanted me to see it. He had also bought a 125 A main lug electrical panel so we discussed the mounting and installation, part of which I will probably work on later this week. He had also received the ITR Oasis Combi unit, so I had to see that too. Fonda built a 3-D cardboard mockup and Butch had it sitting in the water bay where he plans to install the Combi. We will probably do more work on their bus than on ours over the next two weeks, but that’s OK; their bus has more/critical projects at this point than ours and he has helped me a lot with our projects.

I pulled out at 2:05 PM and decided to take a slightly different route home: SR-16 east, US-31 north, US-6 east, I-69 north, M-60 east, I-94 east, M-14 east, US-23 north, M-36 (Nine Mile Road) east, Pontiac Trail north, to Dorothy Street and the SLAARC monthly meeting at the South Lyon Witch’s Hat Depot. I do not usually take US-6 across Indiana although it is a fine road known as the Grand Army of the Republic Highway. It is flatter than US-20 with more towns and associated lower speed limits and stop lights, but it was a nice drive with different scenery.

I arrived at the SLAARC meeting at 7 PM. The business meeting was already concluded and Mike (W8XH) was setting up for his program on the Arduino SBC (single board computer). He bought the experimenters kit and had been playing with it enough to discuss it with the group. Larry (K8UT) discussed the four projects he has built using the Raspberry Pi platform and passed around some of the hardware.

It was 9 PM by the time I finally got to our house. Linda helped me completely unload the car as I had an 8:30 AM service appointment at Brighton Honda and she was leaving before 6 AM for the bakery. She had fixed some strawberries for me and they made a nice treat after a long day of snacking on vegan junk food while driving. I worked for a while on this post before turning in for the night.

2014/10/13 (M) Grain Of Wheat

Linda was up early and out the door at 5:45 AM. I got up a little after 7 AM, started a load of laundry, had a couple of homemade muffins, and got ready to take my car to Brighton Honda for its 90,000 mile service. I got coffee at the Dunkin Donuts across the street from the dealership first and waited in the lounge working on yesterday’s blog post while they worked on my car.

I forgot to specify synthetic oil so the put in regular oil. When the car was done I headed to Novi and immediately noticed a front-end shimmy that was not there when I dropped it off. They had rotated the tires and may not have re-torqued the lug nuts correctly. It also pulled to left, which might be a tire inflation issue. I did not have time to take it back so I will see if it settles out on the drive to Indiana tomorrow. If not, I will need to get at least the front tires/wheels loosened and retightened, and perhaps balanced. Worst case I will have to get the front end aligned.

I found the FedEx/Kinko’s on Grand River Avenue just east of Novi Road and made 10 copies each of two 24″x36″ electrical diagrams; one for the DDEC I ECM (Engine Control Module) and one for the Allison 700 Series ATEC (Automatic Transmission Electronic Control). I folded up an ATEC diagram for me and one for Chuck and rolled up the other eight and put them in a tube for safe keeping. Chuck and I have DDEC II’s controlling our main engines so I rolled the 10 DDEC I diagrams up and put them in a second tube to protect them. By the time I was done it was 10:45 AM and Chuck was at his shop just up the street so I drove there.

He had installed a dual battery maintainer and wanted me to see it. He mounted it on the back wall of the small bay above the passenger side drive tire of their bus which got it close enough to the chassis batteries (in a tray above the tag tire) for the built-in charging cables to reach the correct battery terminals. He was still pondering where to tie in the AC power source so we discussed some alternatives. He had also put the red covers on the bulbs in his new VDO speedometer so I got to see that. Ours are white for now but most of the dash lighting is green. The red makes the speedo stand out, but if I change ours from white it will likely be to green. Chuck had a supply of spare 12VDC, 1.2W “grain of wheat” light bulbs that are used in our illuminated switches and let me have four. Our Aqua-Hot switch does not currently light up when it is turned on.

After checking out his projects we went to the Panera at Grand River Avenue and Novi Road for lunch. We had a good chat and solved all of the world’s problems so he went back to the shop to find some new ones and I went home to take care of chores. I continued doing laundry and worked on the SLAARC WordPress website setting up user accounts for several new club members.

Linda got home around 5:30 PM and got busy making dinner. She started with a nice salad featuring a ginger dressing. Dinner was 45 minutes later; a baked potato with Brussels sprouts on the side, a glass of Leelanau Cellars Winter White with Peach wine, and grapes for dessert. She worked on something for Butch while the potatoes baked and I worked on e-mail.

We were both tired after dinner but took some time to sort and fold the laundry from which I selected and packed the clothes I will need for the next 10 days. We were tired and turned in after that. I had received an e-mail from Butch with seven photos attached of the place we are considering staying in Quartzite, AZ. It took us a while, but we eventually matched them up with the correct lot on the Google Maps satellite view. It is not the corner lot as Butch and I previously thought, but the 3rd lot north of Kenoyer on the east side of N Lollipop Lane. With that issue resolved we turned out the lights and went to sleep.

2014/10/14 (T) A Crowning Achievement

Linda was up at 5:15 AM again and out the door on the way to the bakery at 5:45 AM. At this hour of the morning she has clear sailing all the way to Hamtramck which is much less stressful than the parking lot that develops on I-96 inbound just a short time later. I was up at 7:15 AM, showered, and started gathering and organizing all of the stuff that I had to load into the car for the trip back to Indiana.

Keith showed up at 9 AM to cut the grass as I was loading my car. He was rained out yesterday and today was not looking too good either but he figured he would have a go at it. I wrote out his check and paid him in advance as I would be gone long before he finished. I had time for a cup of green tea and pulled out of my driveway at 9:30 AM.

My first destination was Gusfa Dental in Dearborn, Michigan where I had an 11 AM appointment. Dr. Steve and his assistant, Margaret, installed my new permanent ceramic crown on the upper right tooth that had a root canal procedure in mid-September. The crown fit almost perfectly and only required a little modification on the surfaces that abut the two teeth immediately adjacent. The bite was just right. Gusfa Dental is definitely not the cheapest clinic around, but the work is top notch and they have been our dentists for almost 40 years.

I was done and out the door at 11:20 AM and headed directly for Twelve Mile, Indiana. The drive was wet but uneventful. Given my starting point in Dearborn I changed my route yet again, this time taking I-94 west to M-60 southwest to I-69 south to the I-80/90 Indiana Toll Road west to exit 92 at SR-19 (IN) in Elkhart. From there I headed south on SR-19 and wound my way slowly through Elkhart until I picked up US-20 westbound on the south side of Elkhart. From US-20 I picked up US-31 south and exited at IN-25 south of Rochester, Indiana where I bought some groceries at the Kroger store. I texted Linda and then called Butch. As I was getting ready to head south on IN-25 I got a call from Michele Henry of Phoenix Paint with some questions about the Zip Dee awnings we had installed on our coach after she finished painting it. I took IN-25 as far south as Fulton and turned east onto a small farm road that took me to Meridian then south to SR-16 and east to Twelve Mile.

While driving down Meridian I saw one of the most intense and perfect rainbows I have ever experienced. It was deeply colored, very clear, and an entire semicircle was visible. A second rainbow, fainter and partial, formed above the first one on the right (south) end. The sky was very dark to the east with bright, low sun from the west. The trees were blazing with color, intensified by the rains, and white farm houses glistened as if they had just been freshly painted. It was spectacular but I was not able to get a photo of it. I arrived in Twelve Mile at 5 PM and immediately unloaded and stored my groceries. I then brought my clothes and technology items into the house and put them in the guest bedroom where I stay when I am here.

Butch needed some parts for various bus projects so I drove us to Home Depot in Logansport. One the drive in he got a call from his brother Tom. He had a problem with his air compressor and wanted Butch to look at it so we went there after our stop at Home Depot, with a stop at the local Mobil station so I could fill the fuel tank in my car. Butch quickly made a tentative diagnosis of the compressor problem as the starting capacitor and/or switch. Tom and Butch did some pondering about details of Tom’s project in which he is converting the front half of a Crosley sedan into a trailer.

We visited for a while back at the house and looked up the grain of wheat bulb I needed for the illuminated switches in the H3-40. Napa Auto Parts shows it in their automotive lighting catalog as a #37, 12 VDC, 1.26 W, wedge based. Butch looked online and found a place (Bulbtown) that sells them for $0.42 each. Orders over $50 get free shipping and handling so we discussed doing a bulb inventory of each bus and then pooling our orders.

I spent a few minutes showing Butch how the photos that Joe sent of the lot in Quartzite matched up with the Google Maps/Earth satellite and Streetview images. By the time we were done with that it was late and we all turned in for the night.

2014/10/15 (W) MC-9 AC Wiring

Cockpit house systems switch panel.

Butch bought a brass nipple (NPT) last night to thread into the fitting on his fresh water tank but the fit was still too loose. He needed the nipple in order to put the fresh water tank back in the bus. Between that and the really soupy 54 degree F weather it was obvious that today was not going to be an outside work day. I suggested that we work on the AC wiring on their bus instead—a nice inside project—after breakfast.

House electrical closet in Butch & Fonda’s MC-9 before rewiring.

I had homemade granola with fresh blueberries and soy milk, a glass of orange juice, and two cups of Seattle Blend 1/2 decaf coffee. While the coffee was brewing I unscrewed the switch panel with the Aqua-Hot switch and replaced the “grain of wheat” bulbs in the Aqua-Hot switch and the Engine Preheat switch. We then got to work on the AC (house) wiring for their bus conversion.

New 20-slot AC panel for inverter circuits.

The bus had three small main lug load centers, with six circuit breakers each, mounted in a future closet in the bedroom. We ran an extension cord through the passenger side rear slider window to power a work light, disconnected the shoreline, and switched off the inverter. I then removed the three panels one at a time, labeling each cable as I pulled it out. With all of the old panels out we mounted the new 20-position panel box for use with the inverter circuit. I spent the rest of the work day, except for a lunch break, pulling old and new electrical cable into the new box and making the connections to the ground bar, neutral bus, and the GFCI circuit breakers for all of the circuits that will be fed by the inverter. We tied in the main AC power to the inverter AC input and checked that all of the circuits worked as planned, which they did. I will mount two of the smaller boxes tomorrow and pull the cables for the shorepower/generator only circuits into those boxes.

We quit working for the day at 7:30 PM and I washed up before making my dinner. I had a nice salad with “power greens” and various toppings and leftover Koshary. Yum. I drew a glass of Moscato, did the dishes, and went back to the house. I had a text and an e-mail from Linda so I replied to those. We were all tired and turned in a little after 9 PM.

2014/09/28 (N) Oh Canada

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Today was all about company—getting ready for company and having company—and this time our company was from Ontario, Canada. Okay, they actually drove down from Frankenmuth, Michigan where they are staying at an RV Park, but they are Canadian citizens who reside in Canada when they are not traveling in their motorhomes. Bill and Karen are fellow converted bus owners and members of both the FMCA Great Lakes Converted Coaches chapter and the Converted Coach Owners group. Mike and Kathy have a purpose built class C motorhome and often travel with Bill and Karen. Kathy is Bill’s sister.

Linda spent the morning preparing vegan lasagna and apple/pear crisp for baking later in the day while I worked at my desk on secretarial and financial duties for our FMCA Freethinkers Associate Chapter.

Company arrived a little after 1 PM. Linda took the ladies on a tour of the house while I took the guys on a tour of the property and then showed them around the house. We had guys’ chat and gals’ chat for a while and then we all gathered around the table on the deck for some grapes and pretzels. Linda put the lasagna in the oven at 3 PM and prepared a salad. When the lasagna was done she put the apple/pear crisp in the oven to bake while we ate. We sat down at 4 PM for dinner and had a very nice meal that included Italian bread and olive oil seasoned with pepper. We opened a bottle of our 2009 Egri Merlot (it may have been our last one) and four of us had a small glass with dinner.

We continued our conversation on the deck after dinner and had our dessert out there. It was an absolutely perfect late September day. When the sun got low in the sky we moved inside as it cools off quickly and the mosquitos come out. We sat in the living room and talked until 9 PM. By then it was dark and they still had a one hour drive back to their RV Park. Kathy had rinsed off the dinner dishes, so Linda loaded the dishwasher and started it. Linda packed her computer and gathered up all of the things she needed for tomorrow so she could get an early start for the bakery. I will be home all day waiting for Bratcher Electric to show up and convert the whole house generator. They are supposed to be here between 1 and 3 PM. Karen took a few photos but I did take any, so I do not have any images to post from today.

2014/09/25 (R) Two M’s

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Linda made zucchini bread and muffins a week or so ago. We ate all of the muffins within a couple of days but she froze some of the bread. She took the bread out of the freezer last night to let it thaw so we could have it for breakfast this morning. She warmed it up and made a fruit salad to go with it, along with our usual fruit juice and coffee. Marilyn took advantage of her visitor status and slept in so we had breakfast without her and she ate when she finally got up.

Madeline in her sofa-bed with her Winnie-the-Poor sleep sack.

I was working on the electrical outlets in the garage when Brendan arrived at 9:45 AM with Madeline in tow. Meghan arrived around 10 AM, so Madeline had all the “buddies” here to admire her. I finished my electrical work, touched up some drywall compound, and then got cleaned up. I was once again the designated reader and got to read three books to Madeline. She had lunch at noon and her dad got her down for a nap around 12:30 PM. Meghan is still experimenting with foods, so she left to do her grocery shopping on the way home.

The “buddies” (L-2-R): Brendan, Marilyn, Meghan, and Linda. (Not shown: Bruce, taking the photo.)

Brendan stayed for lunch and a long chat. He was thinking about leaving when he decided to check out my old Toyo view camera. He figured the students in his history of photography class at the University of Michigan had probably never seen one and wanted to take it in for them to see. He also wanted to have it at his house to play with. We found it and checked that all the parts were there and he loaded it into his car along with the tripod and dolly (studio roller base). Madeline started to wake up so he made his exit. She doesn’t seem the least bit concerned if he’s not here when she wakes up, but is momentarily distressed if she sees him leave.

Flowers along the Mill Pond boardwalk (Brighton, MI).

Madeline is spending the night tonight so we will two M’s here the rest of the day and tomorrow morning. Linda and Marilyn will take Madeline back to Ann Arbor tomorrow in time for lunch and her 1 PM nap. Madeline has swimming on Fridays at 4 PM so Linda and Marilyn will leave before that and stop at Whole Foods Market before taking Marilyn to Detroit Metropolitan Airport for her evening flight back to St. Louis.

I took a few minutes to check e-mail while Madeline was napping. This morning I had tightened up the Wordfence parameters on the FMCA-GLCC site and switched the caching from the faster Falcon Engine to the Basic setting in order to fully activate country blocking. I only had a few failed login attempt e-mails so I think it made a difference, but only time will tell. I also white listed our own IP address to make sure we did not get locked out if we mis-typed our login credentials.

Madeline with Grandma Linda on the Brighton Mill Pond boardwalk.

I had an e-mail from my niece, Amanda, with a couple of pictures of her daughter, Lilly, a very pretty and sweet-tempered child about six weeks younger than Madeline. We saw them in late June and will like try to visit again en route to the southwest this winter, weather permitting. If not, we will certainly try to stop in the area on the way back in the spring.

When Madeline awoke from her nap we let he play long enough to fully wake up and then we all went to downtown Brighton. We walked the boardwalk along the east edge of the Mill Pond and saw a Painted Turtle, an egret, some fish, and lots of ducks and geese. We then took the pedestrian bridge to the west side of the pond where the playscape is located. The playscape is a wonderful place with structures built to suggest animals and Madeline explored it thoroughly with Grandma Linda’s help while I took pictures. It also has an area with chalk boards and a mailbox full of sidewalk chalk that the kids can use to draw. Madeline spent quite a while trying all the different colors.

Madeline with Grandma Linda at the playscape by the Brighton Mill Pond.

We stopped by Lowe’s on the way home to return the spark plug I bought last night and get the correct one. By the time we got back to the house Madeline was hungry so Linda got her dinner ready right away. For our meal Linda prepared a green salad with sunflower seeds and dried cranberries topped with Ken’s Sweet Vidalia Onion dressing (one of our favorites) and a one pot meal of quinoa with black beans, corn, and onions. Linda and I finished the Red Guitar Sangria with dinner (Marilyn does not drink alcoholic beverages).

Madline working with chalk at the Brighton Mill Pond playscape.

Madeline played quietly with Linda for a while as I chatted with Marilyn. Before we knew it, it was time for Madeline to go to bed. The time between dinner and bed always seem short compared to other intervals during the day. She is always very good about bedtime and went without a fuss. Linda spent about 30 minutes getting something ready to e-mail to the bakery software vendor while Marilyn played Words With Friends and I researched where we could buy more Red Guitar Sangria. It is available at the Meijer’s stores in our area and is very reasonably priced so we will probably get some more. We had apple crisp for dessert after which Linda and Marilyn played three-way online Scrabble with each other and their brother Ron in Pennsylvania.

“I think this color goes right here.”

Madeline is a very good-natured and relatively calm child but when she is awake she is full engaged with the world around her. We were all tired after a long but very satisfying day of visiting and turned in without watching any TV.

2014/09/23 (T) Cooking With Gas

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The autumnal equinox was last night at 10:29 PM EDT. It’s a magical moment marking one of the two times during the year that there are equal hours of day and night at every place on the planet. Today is the first full day of celestial fall. From now until the winter solstice the hours of daylight will steadily decrease and be less than the hours of darkness as winter eventually settles over the northern hemisphere. Meteorologist and climatologists consider September 1 as the first day of fall, but either way colder weather is coming north of the equator. Of course, winter in the northern hemisphere varies widely from mind-numbingly cold in the far north to very pleasant the closer one gets to the equator. The southern U.S., in particular Florida, the Gulf Coast, southern Texas, and the desert southwest, have a winter climate that is particularly attractive to RVers from more northern states and the Canadian provinces. Along with all of the migratory birds the “snowbirds” will be very much on the move by mid-October and generally have relocated to the Sunbelt by mid-December. We will be among the last to go, but go we will.

Linda was up early again and off to the bakery ahead of the morning rush hour traffic. I had finished breakfast and was finishing up yesterday’s blog post when Curt called from D. R. Electric Appliance to let me know that our new range was being delivered to them this morning. He said they could bring it out and install it right after lunch so I gave him our address.

I called Bratcher Electric and talked to Karen. I asked if it might be easier on them in terms of scheduling to have someone come out and convert the generator and do the annual maintenance and take care of the electrical project on a separate visit. She agreed and said she we would call me back tomorrow morning to schedule it as she was not in the shop and did not have the schedule for this week in front of her.

I had gotten dressed this morning with the intent of doing some drywall work in the library, some electrical work in the garage, and possibly pulling the cover off the Aqua-Hot in the bus. I turned up the thermostats in the garage and the library and set the temperature up so they would come on. It was 64 in the library and 59 in the garage. I set both of them to 65 and let them run. The library got up to 69 and the garage got up to 70, so it looks like I may have to adjust the anticipators in those thermostats. That wide of a temperature swing means the furnace(s) will not run as often but will run longer when they do. More to the point, however, is that they should regulate the temperature (at the thermostat) to less than +/- 1 degree F. If the thermostat is set to 70 the thermometer should read 69 or 71, it should show 70. The Honeywell thermostats in the house work that way.

I decided to defer most of my tasks until after the new natural gas range was delivered and installed. I did go online and find a manual for the White-Rodgers 1F78 (70 Series) non-programmable thermostat (we have 1F78-144s installed for the library and garage). The manual I found online contained more information than the installation sheet that came with them, including diagnostic tables. It turned out that this thermostat does not have an adjustable anticipator function other than a wire that can be clipped to produce a longer heating cycle when controlling a hydronic heating system. If the cycle is too long (not shutting off when the set point temperature is reached) the really isn’t anything you can do. The displayed temperature is adjustable, however, within a +or- 3 degree range, but the thermometers were supposedly set (calibrated) at the factory, so I’m not sure I want to fix the problem by changing them. I put one of our refrigerator thermometers on top of the library thermostat to check whether it agreed with the built-in thermometer. I then placed a call to Darryll ask about this and let him know that we had received his invoice yesterday.

I pulled the old range out of its space between the kitchen cabinets/counters and moved it to one side to so I had access to the alcove where it normally sits. I unplugged the unit and closed the gas shutoff valve but I did not disconnect the flexible gas line. I swept up the small amount of debris that had accumulated there, trimmed some wood shims that had been used to level the cabinets and were left sticking out into the range space, and then cleaned the floor.

Although we would have liked to have the range installed last Friday or Saturday, today was good enough if just-in-time. Linda’s sister is arriving sometime tomorrow and we will probably have grand-daughter Madeline here starting tomorrow night or Thursday morning. Marilyn leaves Friday evening and Madeline returns home either Friday evening or Saturday. The arrangements are not yet finalized. Her Jewish-run day care center is closed Thursday and Friday for Rosh Hashanah and we agreed to babysit her at our house, including overnight stays. How fun is that? Lots! We are also trying to arrange to have RV friends from Canada come visit and dine with us at the house on Sunday. The point is, we are getting our new range just-in-time for Linda to be able to cook properly for all of these people (and us; I consumed the last of her amazing home-made granola for breakfast this morning).

D. R. Electric Appliance arrived at 3:15 PM. They determined the easiest way into and out of the kitchen was through the front doorwall of the library and then through the kitchen door. I had measured the old kitchen range and the inside of our Honda Element and knew that the old range would not fit in the car (the width and depth are fine but the height is a problem) so I had the installers move it to the garage. We will call the Salvation Army number and arrange for one of their trucks to pick it up.

Our new GE natural gas kitchen range.

It took the 2-man installation crew about 45 minutes, start-to-finish, to remove the old range, move it to the garage, unpack the new range, move it to the kitchen, remove all the packing tape, plug it in, hook up the gas, assemble the burners and slide it into its space between the base cabinets/counters. They said we did not need a new flexible gas line and reused the old one. I had opened the branch shutoff valve in the basement while they were working and they opened the shutoff valve at the unit as soon as they had the gas connected. None of us smelled any gas so they started it up and made sure the five burners on top were working. They handed me the invoice and I asked if they accepted credit cards. They said I would have to call or go into the office for that, gathered up their tools and packing materials, and took off.

I tested the two ovens after they left as they indicated that if they didn’t work there wasn’t anything they could do about it anyway as they were not service technicians. The oven controls are more complicated than the range burners, but I figured out how to set a temperature and turn them on. I did not test the convection feature of the lower oven, the broiler in the upper oven, the timers (start and cook), or other features but I did set the clock. Linda and I will have to spend a little time with the manual to fully understand how to use the ovens.

Another view of the new range.

The only installation issue we have is the iron gas pipe that comes up from the basement behind the unit with the gas shutoff valve is installed on top of it. The pipe is too long and prevents the unit from being pushed back as close to the wall as we would like. It can’t go flush to the wall in any event as there are vents on the back for the convection oven (I think), but it has open space at the bottom that would allow it to go back farther than it is now if the shutoff valve were closer to the floor. The iron pipe is undoubtedly screwed into a 90 degree elbow just below the floor in the ceiling of the basement. Fixing this will simply involve disconnecting the flex gas line, unscrewing the shutoff valve, removing the vertical pipe by unscrewing it, replacing it with a shorter one, reattaching the shutoff valve (or a new one), and reattaching the flex line (or a new one). That’s all stuff I can do, but yeah, it will take me half a day (at least) once I have all the parts.

I drove to downtown Howell and found a parking spot right in front of D. R. Electric Appliance. There wasn’t anyone in the store but I found Curt out back unpacking a refrigerator. I paid him with a credit card and it was a good thing I drove to the store. He said that if they take a credit card over the phone there is an additional 3% charge. He wasn’t clear about who ends up paying the extra charge, but an educated guess says it’s the customer.

Linda sent me a text message at 4:37 PM that she was leaving the bakery. She got home at 6 PM (traffic was very heavy) and was very excited to see her new kitchen range in place and ready to use. As I expected, she would like to have it pushed in farther, so I guess I have another project. She used the range to pan grill a couple of tofu hotdogs and microwaved some leftovers for dinner. She read through the manual for the range and then worked on a grocery list for the next four days while I checked in on websites and e-mail. I am still getting too many failed login attempts on the FMCA GLCC website, so I lengthened to lockout time from 1 hour to six hours.

Marilyn called to let us know that she had arrived at her destination in Lake Orion and her meeting was set for 8:30 AM tomorrow. Linda will pick her up at 9:45 AM and bring her to our house. Linda had developed a headache during the day and it was still bothering her during the evening so she took some medication and we turned in without watching any TV programs.

2014/09/19 (F) Renewed Acquaintance

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After I installed iOS8 on my iPad2 yesterday morning my Logitech Bluetooth keyboard seemed to change its behavior, giving me double letters in some cases and feeling a little sluggish in its response. The keyboard itself has not changed, so I presume this has something to do with iOS8. I also presume the keyboard batteries have not run down already, but I suppose that is a possibility. If so, I will be replacing them once a week. While creating an image gallery for the SLAARC WordPress website last night I noticed that the drag and drop feature of the gallery editor did not work. I upgraded to WP Version 4.0 about a week ago but this was the first time I had tried to use the gallery feature. If there is a problem with this feature there is no way that I am the first person to discover it and I presume WordPress is aware of it. I find it strange, however, that they have not released a maintenance update fixing it since an improved and more visual editor was a major feature of the 4.0 release.

A few weeks back I re-established contact through Linked-In with a colleague from 10 years ago. Jim was Director of General Education Services at Livingston Educational Service Agency at the time and we went through NCA Ambassador training together. It turns out that he lives and works in the Brighton area, so we are now neighbors of sorts. He suggested we meet up for coffee and I finally called him this morning to arrange that. We both had time at 1:30 PM today and agreed to meet at the Panera on Grand River Avenue by I-96 at that time.

Linda got the new Global Bake bakery software installed on her laptop yesterday so this morning she was able to start working on the software conversion process in earnest. Her work requires a lot of concentration, and she gets very focused when doing it, so I went to my office to continue working on editing blog posts and photos.

In checking my e-mail I noticed that I was still getting failed login attempts from foreign countries on this site and on the FMCA GLCC website, which is sub-domain of this site, in spite having installed the premium (paid) version of the Wordfence Security plug-in. I looked at the installed plug-ins for the GLCC website and discovered that I had one named “Limit Login Attempts” that I did not have installed on our personal website or the other two sites I manage. I surmised that this plug-in might be doing just what the name implied and in the process preempting Wordfence from ever doing its job. I deactivated it and saw a reduction in failed attempts, with none from outside North America, suggesting that the country blocking feature of Wordfence was now working properly. I saw a similar drop in failed login attempts on our personal website when I activated the country blocking feature for all countries except the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Only time will tell, however, if Wordfence is indeed blocking login attempts from outside North America.

We had hummus and apples for lunch after which I hung up one load of laundry and put another load in the washer. I left at 1 PM to have time to stop at Best Buy to get something to clean our various touch screens and monitors. Traffic was very heavy in the I-96 and Grand River Avenue shopping area, but Best Buy is in the same shopping complex as the Panera, so I made it there on time. Jim and I talked for almost two hours and which covered the highlights of the last eight years.

Back home I kept my focus on getting the blog caught up. Linda wrapped up her work for the day and we finished the bottle of Alpha Rose from Red Trail Vineyards while she fixed a simple but tasty dinner of vegan burgers and corn. I got a call from Butch letting me know that the company in Nevada had arranged for a semi and taken all of the parts they plan to take. Everything that is left is Butch and Fonda’s to do with as they please. The important thing for us is that I can now take our bus down there at my convenience. I would like to get all of the natural gas related work taken care of and put the finishing touches on the garage project before I move the bus, but I may go ahead and move it next week if the scheduling of contractors works out.

During the evening I had an exchange of TXT messages with Chuck. He had ordered some miniature 24VDC light bulbs (1829s) that are used in our bus dashboards and the order had arrived. Rather than go to his shop after breakfast tomorrow we arranged to meet him for dinner tomorrow night. I also got a call from Michele Henry of Phoenix Paint. She had a new customer who just bought a mid-1990’s Prevost XL converted coach and she gave him my name and phone numbers in case he had any questions about the rig. We agreed that we would try to find time during the GLCC Surplus and Salvage a Rally to work on the article I started last year about the process she used to repair the body and roof of our coach, seal and coat the roof, and paint the body. We capped off the evening with the second to last episode of Season 5 of Doc Martin. We need to return the DVDs to the Howell Library on Sunday, so we want to make sure we get through all of the episodes for Season 5.

2014/09/02 (T) No More Painting

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After breakfast Linda worked on the financial and membership records for our GLCC RV chapter and I took care of a couple of e-mails. Keith showed up to cut the grass, which he managed to do in spite of the wet conditions from yesterday’s heavy rains. After chatting with Keith for a few minutes I started to resume work on “the project” but decided to look for the tub of grass seed and fertilizer we brought from the old house. I found it rather quickly and we still had a partial bag of grass seed, so I spread it around the front yard by hand filling in the bare and thin spots, of which there were plenty. Our flock of wild turkeys was back today. I think they like the grass seed I put out for them.

Wild turkeys gather in and around the fire pit. No...we do plan to cook them.

Wild turkeys gather in and around the fire pit. No…we do not plan to cook them.

I sanded the drywall compound in the library and applied another thin layer. I’ve been applying non-overlapping horizontal strips of mud, letting them dry, sanding them smooth while feathering the edges, then repeating the process for the areas in-between, or outside, the previous strips. I will eventually turn this 90 degrees and apply the strips vertically. The last set of steps will be to fill around the outside of the opening, feathering everything back to the existing wall surface and sanding it smooth with the central part of the patch. We don’t want it to be obvious that there was ever a hole in the wall. Once the drywall patching is done I have to prime the new compound and then paint the entire wall.

The paint on the east wall of the garage and the outside of the utility closet looked good and the paint on the inside of the utility closet looked good enough; it is, after all, the inside of a furnace closet. I was done painting, at least for now, which should have felt like a big deal, but it just meant I could wrap up a couple of things and move on to the next thing.

The first thing was to mount the electrical box on the wall to the left of the library HVAC unit, make all the wiring connections, screw the switch into the box, and put on the cover plate. I routed the thermostat wire alongside, and zip-tied it to, the armored AC power cable. The second thing was preparing the mounting holes for the garage furnace thermostat on the outside of the utility closet wall. I then cut the thermostat cable to the correct length beyond the wall, removed the outer sheath, stripped the ends of the wires, and secured the cable with a zip tie to prevent it from slipping back into the wall. I did not actually mount the thermostat, however, since I was going to wait for Darryll to connect the wires.

Three adults and three young. They are large and impressive birds.

By then it was time for lunch, after which Linda left for her dentist appointment in Dearborn. I wanted something easy to do, so I assembled the three plastic shelving units I bought at Lowe’s yesterday. They went together easily, but one was missing the feet, top caps, and wall brackets and another one had a defective top cap. I put them against the east wall of the garage and the floor was flat enough that they lined up well, so I don’t necessarily need the feet. But the top caps are important, and it bugs me that I did not get everything I paid for.

The next thing I decided to tackle was the wood box in the utility closet that will enclose the electrical sub-panel and make it appear to be recessed and hide all of the electrical cables. I cleared off the table we have been using to work on sheets of drywall and stood the scrap pieces of drywall against the back wall. I got the two 8-foot 1×10’s I bought yesterday, put them on the table, made careful measurements and then marked them. The two side pieces needed to be 52″ long x 7-1/4″ wide, with notches to create clearance for the top plate, horizontal blocking, and electrical cables passing through holes in studs. I cut them to length with the Rockwell circular saw, and then ripped them to width using the Craftsman band saw. The band saw had not been used in years but it had no problem ripping each board. The notches were made with our Porter-Cable saber saw. This kind of work is a pleasure when you have the right tools.

I screwed the two side pieces into place and then measured and cut a bottom cross member, and a trim strip to go below it, and installed those with screws. I then cut a top cross member and a backing strip to go behind it between the two side pieces. When I was done I had a box that would support a 48″ high by 33″ wide 1/4″ thick plywood panel with the outside face flush with the front edge of the sub-panel once I cut a rectangular opening in the plywood to allow it to fit around the box. The plywood panel will be secured around the edges with a few screws and the sub-panel cover plate will overlap and cover any gap between the panel box and the opening in the plywood. I will finish the plywood panel tomorrow or Thursday depending on when Darryll returns and how much I have to work with him to get the power connected to the new A-C compressor.

Jasper the cat in the kitty tent on the deck. He spends a lot time looking around and sniffing the air when he is out here.

That was the end of my project work for the day so I took a shower and put on some clean clothes. Linda poured a couple glasses of wine and we sat on the deck and enjoyed an absolutely beautiful late summer Michigan evening. We brought the kitty tent out so Jasper could sit outside with us. Linda threw a green salad together, followed by the leftovers of the penne pasta dish and Italian bread she made for dinner on Saturday. As twilight set in we moved inside and I decided to go to Lowe’s for some grass seed. I figured if the soil was still moist first thing tomorrow morning I would spread it around the bare and thin areas in the back and on the west side of the garage, of which there are plenty. Otherwise I will wait until just after the next rain.

I started reading Big Lake Scandal last night and continued with it this evening. It’s the 5th and latest book in the Big Lake murder mystery series by full-time RVer Nick Russell. Nick is a good writer, but he and his wife, Terry, are personal acquaintances, which makes reading his books that much more fun.

2014/08/16 (S) Bus People

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We enjoy the company of our fellow “hams” (amateur radio operators) and so our first destination this morning was the Senate Coney Island in South Lyon for the weekly SLAARC breakfast. It was a much smaller turnout than last week, but that often leads to better conversation for the lower noise level if no other reason.

Converted bus people are also our kind of people, so our second destination today was the Fireman’s Park in Clio, Michigan where the joint CCO/GLCC “Back-to-the-Bricks” rally was taking place. There were 22 rigs in attendance, 19 of which were converted buses. We got there around 11AM and spent the afternoon visiting with whomever was around, starting with Pat and Vickie Lintner. Light rain moved in during the early afternoon and we had a nice visit with our friends from Ontario, Bill and Karen, in their bus.

With a few exceptions we knew all of the attendees and they all knew us, so this was a comfortable reunion with old and new friends. We had a chance to talk to Glen Williams, who runs a clock repair business named Tenor Clocks, about our broken grandfather clock and made an appointment for him to come work on it on Wednesday at noon. (Glen is also part of a four man singing group named “Three Men and a Tenor”. Glen is the Tenor.) We were most cordially invited to stay for dinner but we had not paid to attend the rally and there was very little food we could (would) eat so we left around 6 PM as the group was assembling for the evening meal.

We stopped at the Panera in Fenton on the way home and enjoyed their black bean soup and Mediterranean veggie sandwich, hold the feta cheese. Once home we enjoyed a small glass of Late Harvest Vignoles wine from Acres of Land winery in Kentucky while we worked on our iPads a bit before bed.

2014/08/14 (R) All Computer All Day

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From the time I got up (before 8 AM) until I went to bed (after midnight) I pretty much worked at my desk, specifically at my computer. Much of my time was spent on revising the pages of the new SLAARC WordPress website and making most of them publicly viewable. I also revised the User’s Guide and sent it off to be reviewed. Mixed in with that work I uploaded three more blog posts.

Another chunk of my time was spent dealing with the financial and membership records of our FMCA Freethinkers Chapter and a little time was spent with e-mail and social media, although I really limit the amount of time that goes towards the later. Later in the evening I finally logged in to the Intro to Linux course on edX and went through a short Intro to edX demo course. When I went to shut down my laptop it had 28 updates to install and when it restarted, the Outlook 2013 icon had disappeared from my taskbar. The program was still there on the Apps screen and it still worked, but that was momentarily un-nerving. I also had a Linux update to install.

It was a beautiful day today with cool, dry northwest breezes, more like early fall than the dog days of summer. It was the perfect day for working outside and I wish I could have. We had oatmeal for breakfast, tofu hotdogs for lunch, and lentil loaf with baked potatoes and roasted Brussels sprouts for dinner. It was all simple but very tasty fare. Coffee and juice went with breakfast, green tea with lunch and during the day, and sparkling water with dinner. After lunch I checked the air pressure in the black iron pipe and it was down to 9 PSI. Darryll set it at 12 PSI yesterday afternoon and I doubt that the pressure would move that much just from the change in ambient temperature. I just hope the leak is someplace easy for him to find and fix.

2014/08/04 (M) Phone Problems

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My first task this morning was to sand all of the drywall compound and apply a second/finish coat to the walls I have been building/repairing in the garage. Simple enough to describe but it took some time to do. While the compound was drying I resumed working on electrical wiring.

Our phone went dead yesterday, or at least that’s when we noticed it was not working (no dial tone, no incoming or outgoing calls). I got a call (on my Verizon cell phone) from Ken, the AT&T service technician, around 9 AM indicating that the phone was fixed but he was on his way to our house to verify service at the network interface box. The phone was indeed working, but now the DSL was not. 🙁

Ken told me that he did not have a dial tone back at the distribution box and rather than diagnose why, they usually switch the customer to another wire pair. He spent the entire morning working on the problem, making several trips between our house and the distribution box. By the time he was done we were on different wires from our house all the way back to the switching station. He was now getting a dial tone and an active DSL signal at our network interface box but we did not have a DSL connection at our AT&T gateway.

Ken had mentioned earlier that the phone signal requires two good wires but the DSL will run on just one. That had raised a flag in my mind and I asked Ken if reversing the two wires might cause the problem we were seeing? He said he had never heard of the DSL signal being polarity sensitive, but it wouldn’t affect the phone operation so he switched the wires and … it worked! We got a momentary false alarm until we discovered that the phone cable from the DSL splitter/filter to the phone had a broken tab and would not stay plugged in. I replaced the cable and everything was OK.

Linda was going to help me but she was on her feet a lot the last three days and her right knee was expressing its displeasure so she decided to take it easy today. Brendan and Shawna needed to borrow the pressure washer and Linda needed a few ingredients from Whole Foods for her granola recipe, so she drove to Ann Arbor to accomplish those chores. She stopped at Lowe’s on the way back and picked up a 50′ role of 14-2+g NM electrical cable. Ken left around 1 PM and we had a light lunch of chickpea salad and fresh nectarines.

There are too many cables going through the wall top plate above the sub-panel in the garage for me to comfortably drill new holes to run more. I was puzzled for a while as to what I would do, and then realized I could create openings in the ceiling (drywall) directly above the sub-panel for new wires as this area will ultimately be boxed in. I used the Porter-Cable oscillating saw I bought a couple of weeks ago to cut a long slot for new wires. It was the right tool for the job. The NM cables should have fed up into the attic easily, but they didn’t. A peak in the attic confirmed that they were running into plywood on the original garage roof. The plywood was cut back for access purposes where the breezeway (library) roof ties in, but no more than necessary. The sub-panel is towards the northeast corner of the garage and the original garage rafters/plywood are only about eight inches above the drywall. I had planned to run four cables today but needed Linda’s help. I got two of them started and then turned my attention to other things.

I had a work session of the FMCA education committee at 4 PM so I wrapped up my construction work an hour prior to that to give me time to switch gears and get somewhat organized. The work session was via teleconference and lasted about an hour.

We got a call around 8 PM from Darryll. He planned to order the garage furnace, the library HVAC unit, and the 2″ iron pipe tomorrow for delivery on Wednesday and wanted to make sure that was OK. He planned to start work on Thursday assuming the materials got delivered on Wednesday.

2014/06/23 (M) Monsoon Season

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The morning was cool with temperatures just above 60 degrees F and a thin layer of high clouds. I was tempted to work in the yard trimming low branches off a few more trees but today was supposed to be lawn care day and it did not make sense to create a mess. That was Linda’s argument, anyway, and it sounded right to me. Besides, the chance of rain was 0% until noon but then jumped to 60%, and the radar showed a band of storms moving out of Wisconsin over Lake Michigan and in our general direction. Keith always mows our neighbor’s yard first, starting around 9 AM. The first raindrops fell around 11AM. He got part of our yard mowed but by 1 PM there was a light, steady rain, causing the grass clippings to clump and making him less than comfortable, so he called it quits for the day. While not the steady, heavy rains of a true monsoon, late spring this year has been persistently wet.

I chatted briefly with Steve from Village Landscape Development this morning. They have continued to be delayed in finishing projects by the recurring rain. His newest ETA for our job was Wednesday (this week) but he was not aware of the rain that was expected for today and tomorrow. I figure Wednesday next week; maybe.

We were sitting on the back deck enjoying our morning coffee and decided to look for some information on our Mugo Pine. It turns out that our Mugo pine isn’t a Mugo pine after all; it’s a dwarf weeping Norway spruce. I trimmed off a dead branch yesterday and this morning discovered that it was the right thing to do, so no harm done. In the future I should probably follow the corollary of the carpenter’s rule: research twice, cut once.

Linda had an appointment with the dentist this morning to have her broken molar prepared for a crown. She left mid-morning for the 50+ mile drive to Dearborn and stopped at the mall on her way back. Between the time needed to make the crown and her upcoming jury duty she won’t be able to go back until late July to have the crown installed and all of the other work done that was postponed so the broken tooth could be dealt with last week.

Several weeks ago I bought a replacement handle and lock set for the front storm door but did not get it installed right away. It was not a perfect fit so installation required modification of the door frame. I’ve been putting it off but today was finally the day to get it done. I had to drill new holes and enlarge existing ones, which never works well. I did not get the holes in exactly the right spot the first time, which required even more drilling and enlarging. I stayed with it and eventually got the hardware installed and working the way it is supposed to. The trim pieces cover all of the holes, so none of my modifications are visible and the door looks fine.

I spent the afternoon at my desk catching up on posting entries to our blog and working on tasks related to several RV clubs we belong to. I also downloaded documents and videos related to our role as RVillage Ambassadors. The second teleconference meeting of the FMCA Education Committee today was at 4 PM, and I sent a short e-mail summary of my findings regarding the RV Trip Wizard website in advance of the meeting. The meeting lasted 80 minutes and we had a good discussion.

We rarely go out to dinner anymore. Besides avoiding the expense, eating at home affords us a much greater variety of ingredients prepared as healthier dishes with appropriate portions. Tonight was an exception, though not for any exceptional reason. Linda looked a little tired and I figured she didn’t feel like cooking, so we went to the La Marsa restaurant in Brighton. We split an order of Koshary, a wonderful Egyptian dish with rice, macaroni, spaghetti, lentils, fried onions, and a spicy tomato sauce. We also split the green salad that came with it, and each had a cup of crushed lentil soup. The pocket bread was hot from the oven and the garlic spread was delicious, and it was all vegan. Yum.

By the time we got home from the restaurant we were done working for the day. We relaxed for a while and then turned in to watch another episode of Doc Martin.

2014/06/22 (N) Outside Inside

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We split our time today between outside work and inside work. The temperature was 60 degrees F when we got up so after a light breakfast of homemade granola with fresh fruit and some coffee we resumed our tree trimming work from yesterday. While Linda gathered up branches from yesterday’s trimming, I worked on our Norway Crimson King Maple. This is a magnificent tree, one of the nicest on our property, but it is close to our rear deck at one end and has grown out over the deck such that low branches are at or below eye level and block access to part of the deck as well as the stairs that lead down into the northeast yard.

In the same general area as the maple tree are several large White Pine trees. The lower limbs had grown out and down to reach sunlight, placing their extremities at or below eye level. We want to be able to walk under these trees without getting poked in the eye and we want Keith, who cuts our grass, to be able to drive his zero-turn riding mower under these trees without getting poked or knocked out of the seat.

While I was trimming the maple and pines for clearance I also removed as many dead branches and limbs as I could reach with the pole saw. I had noticed yesterday that our pear tree and our apple tree also had quite a bit of deadwood so I turned the pole saw on them next. Linda continued to gather the smaller branches and pile them in manageable size bundles around the outside of the fire pit. She also dragged the larger limbs over near the fire pit. Once I was done pruning I used our bow saw to remove the smaller branches from these larger limbs and then cut the limbs into 3-to-4 foot lengths.

Linda was going to shovel the ash from yesterday’s fire into a plastic bag but discovered that it was still quite hot. We stirred up the ash cone, made a big pile of small branches on top of it, and then stacked the larger pieces of wood on top of that, teepee style. It took a while but the amount of smoke steadily increased until we finally had a small flame. It did not take long from that point for it to develop into a good size fire. We also recalled that ash from a burn pile is good to add to the soil for some flowering plants and decided we would use it rather than dispose of it in the trash.

We needed to work at our desks today and did not want to exhaust ourselves doing outdoor work so we quit at 1 PM and put our tools away. We had lunch at 2 PM and then spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening doing various tasks at our desks. Part of that time I investigated a web-based RV trip planning tool called RV Trip Wizard. Making recommendations relative to this program is one of the things the FMCA education committee has been asked to do. The website had a demo available, as well as a tutorial and a user’s guide, so I was able to get a good feel for what it does and its ease of use. The Geeks On Tour also had a review available which filled in some details and highlighted a few deficiencies.

Overall I found the website well conceived and nicely implemented, having most of the features needed to plan an RV trip without a lot of unnecessary clutter. Features included routing with: turn-by-turn directions, mileage, overnight stops (17,000 in the database and growing), points of interest, and estimated expenses. Trips can be exported as Excel spreadsheets and as files that can be imported into a GPS. The trip preferences section allows you to specify key parameters about our RV, travel “style”, and estimated costs. Missing from the parameters, however, was weight and propane. It also allows you to indicate a prioritized order for RV parks and campgrounds when looking for places to stay overnight. When planning a trip it will alert you if your rig is incompatible with part of your route, but does not automatically route you around it. That would be unacceptable in a GPS, but is probably OK in this case as you can drag the route around on the map or add waypoints to change it. Finally, you can save an unlimited number of trips indefinitely, recall one, do a “save as,” and then modify it if you want to repeat a previous trip with modifications. RV Trip Wizard is a web-based subscription service and you must have an Internet connection to use it. You cannot save your trips to your local device, and if you do not renew your subscription all of your saved trips are gone forever.

We had fresh fruit at 7 PM (bananas, blueberries, and strawberries) and a glass of wine, after which I worked for a couple of more hours before turning in to watch season 3 episode 2 of Doc Martin.

2014/06/19 (R) Visitors

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We got to visit several times with John and Marian Hagan while we were in Florida this past winter. They were members of our FMCA Freethinkers chapter until they decided to stop full-timing, bought a house in Dunnellon, Florida, put their motorhome up for sale, and did not renew their FMCA membership, which meant they could no longer be members of any FMCA chapters. But we had established contact with them by the time all of that transpired and as Dunnellon was only 25 miles south of Williston, it was easy to meet up with them, which we did on several occasions.

John has a daughter who lives in Ypsilanti, Michigan and she has twin 4-year olds, so he and Marian had indicated that they would be visiting them sometime in June. I e-mailed John as soon as we got back from the GLAMARAMA rally to check on their status and found out that they had arrived in Michigan about the time we left for the rally. They were planning on staying for several more weeks, but we invited them to come to our house for dinner and a visit as soon as mutually possible. That turned out to be today!

We had cloudy skies leftover from the storms of the day before but no additional rain. John and Marian arrived mid-afternoon and stayed until almost 9 PM. We had a good, wide-ranging chat and enjoyed a nice meal of mixed greens salad, lentil loaf, baked potatoes, and roasted asparagus. We had the Franzia Sweet Red wine with dinner and capped off the meal with fresh strawberries, Lotus Biscoff cookies (the same ones they serve on the airliners), and our Sweet Seattle Dreams 1/2 caff custom coffee blend from Teeko’s in Howell.

Since John and Marian are in the area for an extended period of time, they have been visiting a lot of local attractions, especially things connected with the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. We all agreed that we would get together at least one more time while they are here, perhaps meeting them in the Ann Arbor / Ypsilanti area and dining at a local restaurant.

2014/06/15 Family Time

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We were parked in a fenced compound area next to the regular “campground” at the Elkhart County 4-H Fairgrounds. The campground has gravel sites with 50A full hookups, and we were allowed/encouraged to use the sewer connections to dump our holding tanks before departing this morning. We had checked out the campground last night and decided that it would be easier for us to pull around to the dump stations on the outer road than to maneuver into and out of one of the open campground sites, all of which were back-ins.

I have mentioned before what a nice facility this is. Several of our GLCC members are from north central Indiana and explained to us that the fairground is as nice as it is because it is booked every week for most of the year, winter being the exception. Elkhart is considered the center of the RV industry in the U.S., but the reality is that RV-related industry is located throughout north central Indiana, and a little bit of southern Michigan, with a few facilities in other parts of Indiana and Ohio. There is also significant RV industry in California, Oregon, and Florida, and to a lesser extent in Pennsylvania and Alabama. By “RV Industry” I am referring to manufacturing, not RV parks, resorts and campgrounds, or RV dealers and service facilities, which are obviously located all over the place.

We skipped breakfast and coffee, as we always do on travel days. Linda prepared the inside for travel and then we visited for a while with our GLCC friends. Around 9:00 AM I unplugged the electrical power, stowed the cord, turned on the chassis batteries, opened the air valve for the engine accessories, and fired up the engine. I did not have any trouble getting out of our parking spot or the compound. I drove over to the dump station, which can accommodate nine RVs at one time, and Linda followed in the car. While the holding tanks were emptying we hooked up the car for towing. With everything stowed and secured for travel we checked the toad controls and lights and were on our way, exiting the fairgrounds at 9:25 AM.

We followed the same route home that we used when we left the Escapade rally a month ago: CR-34 (Monroe St.) east to CR-29 north to IN-4 east to IN-13 north to US-20 east to I-69 north to I-96 east to M-59 east and finally a couple of miles of dirt roads to our house. We stopped at the Travel America (T/A) truck stop on M-60 at I-69 to put biocide and Stanadyne diesel additive in the tank along with 75 gallons of diesel fuel.

We had just over 1/4 tank of fuel indicated on the fuel gauge when we pulled in to the T/A. If the gauge is anywhere near accurate that was approximately 50 gallons of fuel, enough to travel another 200 miles and still have 15 – 20 gallons in the tank; more than enough to get us to the Mobil truck stop on I-96 about 25 miles before our house. I wanted to use as much of the fuel in the tank as I could before adding more but did not want to risk running out or sucking sediment off the bottom and clogging the fuel filters. In the end we decided it was safer to stop and add fuel while we still had the 1/4 tank. The 75 gallons brought the fuel gauge up to 5/8ths, which is what I expected. The fuel tank capacity is 235 gallons, but I assume the full mark on the gauge corresponds to 200 gallons. That makes every 1/8 of a tank on the gauge correspond to 25 gallons. We also presume that our average fuel economy, based on prior data, is 6 MPG which equates to 150 miles per 1/8 tank.

We did not fill the tank because the bus is going to be sitting for a while and we did not want to have all of that fuel onboard aging in the summer heat. There is a reason, however, to keep the fuel tank as full as possible. Most of the fuel that is pumped to the engine is used to cool the injectors and the DDEC engine computer and returned to the tank. The more fuel in the tank, the less frequently any particular molecule passes through the engine giving the fuel in the tank more time to dissipate the heat.

Our trip was easy and un-eventful other than the powered driver-side windshield shade quite working. Add that to the list. We got home by 1:30 PM which gave us time to unload food and a few essentials from the bus and take showers. Since Linda spent Saturday morning preparing food, she only had minimal cooking to do for dinner. Our son, daughter-in-law, and grand-daughter arrived at 3:30 PM and our daughter and son-in-law arrived at 4:00 PM. Madeline had a cold, wasn’t feeling well, and had only had a short nap, but she was fine as long as she was busy. This was a combination birthday and Father’s Day gathering, but mostly an excuse to gather our small, immediate family. We had a lovely summer meal of potato salad, collard greens cole slaw, baked beans, and cheeseburgers with chocolate cupcakes (from a local bakery) and fresh strawberries for dessert. All vegan, and all delicious.

Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline left shortly after dinner and Meghan and Chris left around 8:00 PM. Although our morning departure and drive home had been quite routine and the family gathering had been relaxed and relatively easy, it all added up to a long day. I started the download of an update to my Adobe Creative Cloud subscription that looked like it was going to take a while, so we skipped watching an Episode of Doc Martin and turned in for the night.

2014/06/14 (S) Day 4 Rally Conclusion

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Each rally has a slightly different approach to food. On the last full day of the GLAMARAMA they switch the breakfast carbohydrate delivery mechanism from donuts to pancakes and serve them with sausage links. The coffee and tea are still there, of course, so we had coffee. Other rallies, like the Escapades, have a “hitch up” breakfast on the day of departure, with coffee and donuts. When Nick and Terry Russell were running their Gypsy Journal Gathering rallies they also had coffee and donuts on departure day as I recall.

In order to serve a lot of pancakes to a lot of people in a relatively short period of time GLAMARAMA hires a specialized food service. The one they hired this year had long griddles with an overhead depositor that moved the length of the griddle like a gantry crane. It would precisely deposit the batter to make a row of 5″ pancakes. The operator would then move it by hand and deposit the next row, repeating this as they moved along the griddle. Another worker followed behind the depositor with a pancake turner (flapjack flipper) and turned the pancakes when they were done on the first side. Although hand labor was still involved it was an efficient, high volume, production process that did not require an army of volunteers.

When we were done drinking coffee and chatting Linda headed back to our motorcoach to prepare food for our family gathering on Sunday afternoon. I headed over to the seminar building for a presentation by Jason and Nikki Wynn of Gone with the Wynn’s. They were joined by Chris Dunphy and Cherie Ve Ard of Technomadia and did a panel discussion on earning income on the road. They also covered work-camping and volunteering in exchange for a camp site. They did an excellent job, relaxed and low key, and streamed the event live to the web. The logins indicated that 68 people viewed the presentation online, which was probably more people than were in the room.

Geeks on Tour got their flash drives in (Nick and Terry Russell brought them down from Elkhart). I wanted to restart our subscription, but wanted the flash drive instead of the CD as Linda needed it to store some files. I ended up with both. Their Tutorial Video series ( http://geeksontour.tv ) is an amazing resource for learning how to use a wide range of technologies for Planning, Preserving, and Sharing you RV adventures.

At 10:45 AM I met with Jerry Yates, Executive Director of FMCA, in my role as a member of the national education committee, to talk about RVillage. It also gave me a chance to further explore making online education available to FMCA members, such as that provided by the Geeks On Tour, either directly from the FMCA website or through discounted subscriptions to provider websites.

Linda helped Alma Baker get situated for the Fleetwood hot dog lunch and had a tomato and onion sandwich while she was there. I had a couple of tofu hot dogs in our coach and eventually headed over to a 1:30 PM seminar on 120 VAC by Gary Bunzer. It was very good, as usual, but by Saturday afternoon seminar attendance had thinned. This was a repeat of a session he had done on Wednesday, so many attendees who wanted to see probably already had.

Linda hung around the coach waiting for Butch and Fonda, who drove over from Twelve Mile, Indiana to work with her on some aspects of their pending business sale. I came back to the rig to say hello and around 4:45 PM we gathered up some hummus, chips, and beverages and headed over to the 5:00 PM RVillage get-together. The volunteer dinner started at 4:30 PM, but we decided not to go as we knew there would be little-to-nothing we would be able to eat.

Nikki Wynn had scheduled the RVillage get-together in the Dog and Cat Pavilion and we ended up with a nice turnout of 17 people. It was not a pot luck, but enough folks brought munchies and extra beverages that everyone had something. We milled around conversing in shifting groups and eventually formed chairs into a (sort of) circle. Chris Guld suggested we go around and introduce ourselves and say where we were when we were 15 years old and whether we had any notion that we would find ourselves where we are now. It turned out to be a fun, low key, way to get to know each other by filing in a few personal details.

We disbanded by 6:30 PM, went back to our coach for a few minutes, and then headed over to the final evening’s entertainment. The Walker Family hails from Nashville and we saw them a few years ago at the G.L.A.S.S. rally in Berrien Springs, Michigan. Dad, mom, and seven kids; four girls and three boys. The “girls” are now young women; two are married and one just had her first child. They perform as “The Redhead Express.” The boys are now 15, 13, and 11. The older two play drums for their sisters and perform as a trio with guitar backup from one of their sisters. Mom and dad joined the sisters for a couple of numbers, but the entire family never performed together. My recollection was that they had the last time we saw them, but that’s been at least four years, maybe five, and Linda disagrees with my memory. Regardless, they are very talented and put on a spirited show of country songs with a bit of gospel and patriotic stuff mixed in; just what you would expect from a Nashville-based group. They did not, however, use any pre-recorded sound tracks.

Following the concert there were drawings for prizes and the 50/50 raffle. The Grand Prize was a gift certificate for an 11-day Adventure Tours Mega-Rally worth $3,000 (one motorhome with two people). One of our GLCC members won $200 in the raffle. Those of us “camped” in the GLCC area gathered by our rigs after the drawings and stood around talking until it cooled of to the point that everyone was ready to retreat into their rigs for the evening.

2014/06/13 (F) Day 3 Shop-Learn-Eat

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Day 3 of the 2014 GLAMARAMA kicked off with coffee and doughnuts at 7:30 AM. Those attendees going on the morning tour of the Jayco factory had to assemble early. We had coffee and visited with friends until the vendors opened at 9:00 AM.

At the 2013 GLAMARAMA last September I had decided to buy a small video camera/recorder to mount on the inside of the windshield and record what is happening in front of the coach. By the time I went to buy it on the last day at 3:00 PM the vendors were closed. I did not make the same mistake this time and bought one this morning. We still need to get a 32 GB high speed SD card to go with it.

We had spotted some Velcro straps at another vendor and decided to buy a pair to use for securing the Pressure Pro TPMS repeater to the inside rear view mirror in our Honda Element. The same vendor had an LED light that looked like it might fit in our downlights. They loaned us one to try. It fit well and the light was OK. I returned the sample and bought a new one. Lloyd De Gerald had his Aqua-Hot service booth right next to the Aqua-Hot factory booth and I purchased an inline secondary fuel filter from him.

Michele Henry from Phoenix Paint ordered some silver (white) reflective tape for us as it was on sale and we thought it might look OK around the lower portion of our bus. (There is a channel on all of the lower body panels, as well as the front and rear bumpers, where this reflective tape is intended to go.) Our hope was that the tape would reflect the adjacent paint color while making the bus much more visible at night. Alas, it did not pick up the surrounding color and the tape was a little wider than the channel, which would complicate the installation. I did not see it, but Linda did, and did not like the way it looked.

Josh Leach specializes in interior projects and is currently working out the Phoenix Paint facility. He teamed up with Darin Hathaway (the Aqua-Hot technician who serviced our Aqua-Hot system on Monday) and Michele Henry (who painted our coach two years ago) to get a booth at the GLAMARAMA. We discussed our interior remodeling ideas and agreed to have him come by the coach to see it.

Just after noon Linda drove to the Whole Foods store in Mishawaka, Indiana to get ingredients for dishes she planned to serve back at the house on Sunday. I attended two seminars, both by Gary Bunzer (the RV Doctor). The first one was on balanced battery systems. The key concept of that seminar was that there are poor, OK, and optimal was to interconnect multiple batteries to form a battery bank of the required voltage and energy storage capacity (Amp-Hours). The second seminar was on controlling/eliminating holding tank odors. Linda dropped in on this one for a little while and then headed over to the reception for vendors and chapter officers. I joined her at the reception after the seminar concluded. Gary has published a column somewhere on RV maintenance and operation every month for the last 38 years.

The vendor and chapter officers reception was very nice, with fresh fruit and veggies, cheese and crackers, some deli meats, and a choice of wines. We returned to our coach for a little while after the reception before heading over to the evening entertainment. Keith Longbothum and his sidekick, an excellent harmonica player, put on a high energy show that was initially Nashville country but morphed into gospel and patriotic. One thing I noticed about entertainment tonight and on Wednesday was the use of pre-recorded instrumental soundtracks which make it possible for a small ensemble to produce a very full sound without having to pay a lot of musicians.

There was a door prize drawing after the entertainment. We did not win. The head of the parking crew also gave instructions for departure on Sunday.

2014/06/12 (R) Rallying Day 2

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First of all, yesterday was our daughter’s 33rd birthday. Happy birthday, Meghan!

At most rallies “breakfast” consists of coffee and doughnuts, with a pancake and sausage meal thrown in somewhere. We like our own coffee a lot better than what is typically served at rallies, but these breakfasts are included in our rally fee, so we go have coffee and sit and talk with folks. Mostly it’s about sitting and talking with folks. Larger rallies are social/educational events. Smaller rallies tend to just be social events.

The GLAMARAMA organizers had arranged for a morning and afternoon tour of a local Dometic factory today, with tours of a local Jayco factory tomorrow. Slots were limited, requiring an advance reservation, and a single school bus was contracted to transport each group. We did not go, but our GLCC friends who did said it was an excellent tour of a very impressive factory.

We went through the vendor buildings when they opened at 9:00 AM and took stock of who was there and what they were selling. We usually check out the vendors early in the rally but do not buy anything right away, giving us time to ponder possible purchases.

We did not attend any seminars today. Most of the chapter socials were scheduled to start at 4:00 PM including our Great Lakes Converted Coaches meeting. Linda and I were responsible for the food, most of which we had ordered from Pizza Hut on Tuesday. At 2:15 PM we drove to the Kroger on the northwest side of Goshen to get ice, bottled water, and diet Coke. (Pizza Hut is part of PepsiCo, so they only sell Pepsi soda products. I do not care for Pepsi and usually forego a soda beverage if Pepsi is the only thing available.) The food was supposed to be delivered to Gate 5 of the Fairgrounds at 3:35 PM but the driver was delayed by trains blocking his route. (This is common in Goshen.) He finally arrived at 3:50 PM. We transferred all of the food to our car, paid him, and headed for the pavilion. A few people had already arrived and they helped us unload the food and set it up on two tables. By the time we had it ready to serve most folks had arrived and most of them were hungry. We did not take a head count but I estimated 35 people, plus or minus. Once everyone had a chance to eat we had a short business meeting. By the time we were done and had everything cleaned up it was 6:30 PM. We went back to our GLCC parking area and visited a little longer with our immediate neighbors before retire to our buses for the evening. On the day of the chapter socials there is no evening entertainment; those who want to usually gather for cards or bingo.

2014/06/11 (W) GLAMARAMA14 Day 1

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Although the opening ceremonies for the 2014 Great Lakes Area Motorcoach Association (GLAMA) area rally (GLAMARAMA14) took place at 7:30 PM, the Elkhart County 4-H Fairgrounds were busy with activity all day. The golf cart shuttles started running at 7:30 AM and the parking crew members were at their stations and started parking motorhomes at 8:00 AM. The registration building was open at 8:00 AM, the indoor vendors were open at 9:00 AM, and the food vendors were open at 10 AM.

The Fleetwood Motorhome Association (FMA) had rolled their rally into the GLAMARAMA, and as part of their participation they sponsored Gary Bunzer, the RV Doctor, as the featured speaker. Gary normally only does national rallies and GLAMARAMA14 was the first time he had agreed to speak at an FMCA area rally. He was scheduled for a full set of presentations starting at 1:30 PM today. There were no other seminars at that time and he drew a large crowd, as he usually does. He had a second seminar starting at 3:30 PM but we could not attend as we were scheduled to drive golf carts from 4:00 – 6:30 PM. Fortunately he is repeating that seminar on Saturday.

Sometime during the last day or so I received a draft copy of the June 2014 Bus Conversion Magazine for review of my cover/centerfold article on the Cool Cruiser; a GM PD4106 I photographed at the 2014 Arcadia Bus Rally in late December. I sent back a few minor corrections. The editor had some health issues that delayed the May issue and they are working very hard to get the caught up so I got my comments back to the ASAP.

We had received an e-mail a week or so ago regarding the RVillage Ambassador Program and had responded that we were definitely interested in participating. Earlier this week we were notified that a webinar was scheduled for Saturday May 14 at noon. I e-mailed back that we could not participate in the webinar at that date/time due to GLAMARAMA activities.

At 4:00 PM we picked up our golf carts and headed out for two and a half hours of fun driving around the fairgrounds meeting people and providing rides and/or directions. There had been a threat of rain all day but it held off until after our shift ended.

The evening entertainment was provided by New Odyssey, an extremely high-energy three-man group out of Chicago, Illinois that plays 30 different instruments. They put on a great, but slightly familiar, show and we finally figured out that we had seen them a few years ago at a G.L.A.S.S. rally in Berrien Springs, Michigan. (Great Lakes Area Spring Spree.)

Before the show ever started the skies opened up and it rained very hard. We had left the roof vents/fans open/on, with a running computer sitting directly under one of them, so I ran back to the coach to close everything up. It was a short distance, but I was soaked by the time I went 10 feet. Ironically, but luckily, not a single drop of rain had entered the coach, perhaps because we were parked under a very large tree. Still, I closed everything, dried off and changed into my rain gear for the walk back to the assembly hall.

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Category Archives: FMCA

2015/06/01 (M) Bradd and Hall et al

2015/05/31 (N) Age of Disco Camping

2015/05/30 (S) Chuck and Barbara

2015/05/21 (R) Cats, Cars, and Tenure

2015/05/19 (T) More Ceramic Tile

2015/05/01 (F) May Day

2015/04/26-30 (N-R) Routine Returns

2015/02/24-28 (T-S) Bus Projects

2015/02/13 (F) Liar Peg Leg Smith

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

2015/02/06 (F) KOFA NWR Palm Canyon

2015/02/01-05 (N-R) Another Month in Q

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

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

2014/10/08-15 GLCC and Bus Work

2014/09/28 (N) Oh Canada

2014/09/25 (R) Two M’s

2014/09/19 (F) Renewed Acquaintance

2014/09/02 (T) No More Painting

2014/08/16 (S) Bus People

2014/08/14 (R) All Computer All Day

2014/08/04 (M) Phone Problems

2014/06/23 (M) Monsoon Season

2014/06/22 (N) Outside Inside

2014/06/19 (R) Visitors

2014/06/15 Family Time

2014/06/14 (S) Day 4 Rally Conclusion

2014/06/13 (F) Day 3 Shop-Learn-Eat

2014/06/12 (R) Rallying Day 2

2014/06/11 (W) GLAMARAMA14 Day 1