Category Archives: WFPB

Posts related to our Whole-Foods Plant-Based approach to healthy eating. We became vegetarians in 2000 and transitioned to being vegans in 2011. We discovered the WFPB concept in 2012.

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.

 

2014/06/09 (M) Mobile Service

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

2014/06/08 (N) Positioning

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We were up around 7:00 AM, showered, dressed, and gathered up toiletries and other last minute items for our outing.  I did a last minute check of e-mail and RVillage and then shut down the computers, printers, and NAS units and packed up my laptop.  We started our final loading process at 9:00 AM and had everything on board by 9:20 AM.  While Linda configured the car for towing, I turned the chassis batteries on, disconnected the shorepower line, stowed the cord, checked that the inverter was operating, and opened the air valves for the engine accessories and the air line to the car auxiliary braking system.  While Linda closed up the utility bay I fired up the main engine and drained the moisture out of the auxiliary air tank.  We checked the lights and finally checked that all of the bays were closed and locked.  GPS and TPMS on with all tires reporting in, all gauges reading normal, and side mirrors adjusted.  Tag axle up for the tight 180 degree turn exiting the driveway and all ahead slow while Linda verified the car wheels were turning.  She was on board and buckled in at 9:30 AM and we were on our way.  We have gotten reasonably efficient at this departure routine, but when driving a bus with a car in tow you do not simply turn the key and drive away.

We had light rain overnight and it was still drizzling as we pulled out.  No problem; cloudy skies often make for easier travel.  We drove up to M-59 and headed west, picking up I-96 westbound on the west edge of Howell.  By the time we turned onto I-69 southbound at the southwest corner of Lansing, Michigan we had run out from under the rain and the overcast gave way to partly cloudy skies with patches of blue making for very pleasant driving conditions.  At Coldwater, Michigan we headed west on US-12, a route we have driven many times and always enjoy.  Just north of Elkhart, Indiana we exited US-12 onto M-205 which swings south and becomes SR-19 as it crosses into Indiana.  About two miles into Indiana we turned east on County Road 4 and 0.7 miles later turned into the entrance to Elkhart Campground.  It was a little before 1:00 PM and we had made the 160 mile trip without rest or fuel stops.  I set the cruise control at 60 MPH on the Interstates and 55 MPH on M-59 and US-12, but had to slow down for interchanges and lower posted speed limits going through small towns.  We usually base our expected travel time on an average speed of 50 MPH which seems to account surprisingly well for all of these variations.

We got checked in to the Elkhart Campground using our Escapees membership to save 15% off of their overpriced 50A FHU grass sites.  They put us in a new part of the campground we have not used before.  The spot was level so I but the tranny in neutral, set the parking brake, and shut the engine off.  I shut off the air and chassis batteries and hookup up the shorepower line while Linda got the inside ready to use, our standard arrival routine.  In all fairness, Elkhart Campground is not a fancy RV resort but is nice enough, and one of only two RV parks in Elkhart, Indiana, so part of what you pay for here is location.  We have been here at least 9 times, usually for Great Lakes Converted Coaches rallies.  It is centrally located for much of our membership and has a building with meeting rooms and kitchen facilities that they let us use for no additional charge.  Our reason for being here now is to add a couple of days of RV use to the GLAMARAMA rally and position ourselves for an easy, early morning entry into the Elkhart County 4-H Fairgrounds on Tuesday.

For lunch Linda served some of the cold three bean salad she made yesterday along with tofu hotdogs (with mustard, relish, and onions, of course).  After lunch we got our WiFi Ranger connected to the campground WiFi network and checked in to the campground on RVillage.  The website indicated that there were 11 other people checked in here, but we knew that some of them had been here after the recent SKP Escapade and subsequently left.  We went for a walk around the campground and found the FMCA Frustrated Maestros (Great Lakes Chapter) camped by the activities building.  It was obvious that they were having a pre-rally and using it to rehearse before heading to the GLAMARAMA rally in Goshen on Tuesday.  We recognized Ron and Meredith Walker’s Prevost XL bus conversion but did not see them outside.

As we were finishing our walk we ran into Nick Russell of The Gypsy Journal and he invited us in to their motorhome for a brief chat.  Terry was busy removing their old combo washer/dryer to make room for the new one they are supposed to get tomorrow, but she put her work aside to visit.  We finally got to see her loom which we have read about on Nick’s blog.  Considering what a sophisticated device it is, it fits surprisingly well in their Winnebago Ultimate Advantage (which has slides).  Terry was obviously very excited to have it and enjoyed describing its operation to us.  She is mostly self-taught and already producing some very intricate designs.

For dinner Linda made a nice green salad to go along side a bowl of the vegetable chili she made yesterday, served with crackers and a glass of Franzia Sweet Red wine.  We went for a walk after dinner and ended up having a conversation with several of the Frustrated Maestros, including Ted (K0DDB) who took up the banjo at age 56.  As we walked past Nick and Terry’s motorhome Terry was outside talking to Greg and Jan White.  Greg was “parting out” the combo washer/dryer that Terry had just removed from their rig to salvage as many usable spare parts as possible since they have the same model in their American Eagle coach.

We got back to our motorcoach just before 8:00 PM and tried to connect to the Technomadia live UStream videocast they were doing for the Mobile Internet Aficionados private membership Facebook group, but the WiFi at Elkhart Campground was not up to the task and I did not feel like turning on our Verizon MiFi device.  Linda turned the TV on instead and checked out the stations available to us.  We had all of the major networks and decided to watch the final episode of Cosmos and then turned in for the night.

 

2014/06/06 (F) Chapter Business

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I spent a good portion of the day working on the membership and financial records for the FMCA Freethinkers Associate Chapter.  My work as VP/Secretary of the chapter is sporadic.  Weeks-to-months go by where there is very little that needs to be done, but when something pops up I have to take care of it in a timely manner and it often takes half a day to do it.  This usually involves updating the roster and notifying the members and FMCA HQ when a new member joins.  It also involves updating the financial reports as people pay their dues.

We have a chapter treasurer who handles the money and maintains the checking account but I maintain the membership records, which include keeping track of how much members have paid in dues and what calendar year those dues are for, and prepare the financial statements.  The busy times of the year for me, however, are September and October, when we prepare for and hold our annual meeting, and December through March, when I have to certify our roster to FMCA HQ and most members pay their dues.

Linda had more work to do for the bakery today but was able to do it at home.  She heated up an Amy’s Roasted Vegetable Pizza for lunch.  This is now my favorite pizza and cheese, vegan or dairy, would not improve it.

When I bought the Apple TV unit last night I also bought a Logitech wireless (Bluetooth) t630 optical Touch Mouse that I have been considering since I got my ASUS laptop.  I let it charge overnight (USB port) and today paired it with the computer, which was very easy.  There are some things about Windows 8/8.1 that I like and this is one of them.  I downloaded Logitech’s software package and installed it, which was also very easy.  Besides the usual cursor movement and left/right click functionality this mouse supports “touch” movements for vertical/horizontal scrolling and single/double finger soft taps for switching between the Start and Desktop screens and for switching between apps.  It’s very thin, but large enough to fit my hand comfortably, and feels solid and substantial.  So far I really like it.

Linda made a one pot dish for dinner with potatoes, black beans, kale, onions, and spices, including cumin, and probably some other ingredients.  It was delicious and healthy with lots of dietary fiber.  Earlier in the day we watched the latest NutritionFacts.org segment on the typical protein-rich, fiber-deficient American diet.  Most Americans, including vegans, consume way more than the recommended daily average of 42 grams of protein, but very few come anywhere near the recommended daily intake of fiber.  Vegetarians and vegans are the exception as dietary fiber comes only from plants, and the more whole-food the plant-based diet, the better.

We watched Season 2, Episode 1 of Doc Martin before turning in for the evening.  As with any TV series it has a formula, but it’s a formula I like.  I’m waiting for the episode where Doc Martin finally accepts and embraces the dog.  The dog is very loyal and will obviously win the day in the end.

 

20140605 (R) Apple Roku

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Linda had to go into the bakery today which left me to catch up on phone calls and errands.  I made more phone calls to contractors this morning and had better luck than yesterday reaching people or at least leaving messages.  I rescheduled with Gary from GM Construction to come discuss the pole barn project.  I also got hold of Bratcher Electric and determined that the annual maintenance on the whole house generator could wait until we are ready to do the conversion from propane to natural gas, which they can handle.  In talking to Mike Bratcher I also determined that we can install a main panel in the garage just after the transfer switch and then run power directly from there to the pole barn rather than from the main panel in the basement.  While we are at it, we could redo the sub-panel in the garage, feeding it directly from the new main panel rather than the main panel in the basement.  The basement panel is very crowded and we have wires carrying electricity back and forth unnecessarily.

I got a call from Butch with an update on the negotiations of the sale of the major portion of their business assets.  Linda has been advising them relative to valuation, accounting, and tax issues and we have been helping them with purchase agreement language.  It looks like they are in the final stages leading up to a closing of the deal.  Their big annual event is coming up in early July and they will likely be busy with the transfer of inventory and training of the buyer during and after that event.  I need to get our bus down to their place to work on some projects and help Butch work on getting their bus conversion done enough that they can live in it this winter in the southwest.  Based on things going on at both ends, it looks like the window for that work will be mid-September to sometime in November, weather permitting.

Our converted coach friends, Pat and Vickie, have some older Motorola GMRS handheld radios that they like but the charger bases have disappeared.  My ham radio friend Scott (AC8IL) is in the commercial mobile communications business so I checked with him to see if chargers were still available.  They were and he had a couple of the drop-in style charger/bases in stock!  Scotty is just that kind of guy.  I picked them up this morning and will deliver them to Pat and Vickie at the GLAMARAMA rally.

Apple Roku sounds like an interesting dessert, but it’s not.  It might be an either/or situation, but it could be a both/and.  John Dewey was a both/and kind of guy, so I favor that approach.  We were intrigued by Steve and Karen’s Roku Internet TV streaming device last night so I stopped at Best Buy today on my way home from running my errand to see if they had them in stock and if so at what price.  Not only did they have them, they had three different models.  The “stick” was $50, the Roku 2 was $70, and the Roku 3 was $100.  (The Roku 3 does not have A/V connectors like the Roku 2, only HDMI, but it has a five times faster processor.)  But that was not all, oh no.  They also had the Apple TV device for $100 and two other similar products, one of which looked like an Amazon/Kindle thing and the other one a WD thing, whatever that is.

The Roku units (2 and 3) have access to a lot of content on a free, subscription, and pay-per-view basis.  The Apple TV unit has access to content on the same basis but the selection may not be as extensive; it’s hard to say for sure as the devices are not easy to compare directly.  The Apple TV unit, however, has one huge, unique feature; it can mirror anything on an iOS device, such as our iPads, to a TV/monitor.  The iPad can also be used as a control panel for the Apple TV device.

We do not have to choose between a Roku and an Apple TV unit, of course, we can get and use both if we want; it’s just a matter of money.  Between the two TVs in the house and the two in the bus it could be a lot of money if we wanted dedicated units of both types on all four TV/monitors.  We always have the option of moving things back and forth, but in general I prefer not to do that.  To the extent we can afford it I prefer to have the house and the bus set up so that the only things we move between them are the things we have to, such as ourselves, our food, our laundry, our computers, our cats, and some of our ham radio gear (at least for now).  The best solution, however, may be to get one of each device and move them around as needed.  That would give us the best cost/benefit ratio, but not the most convenience.

When Linda got home from her day at the bakery we finished the Egri Merlot we had opened the other night and caught up on the day’s events.  We decided to try the Apple TV device first and see how it worked in our situation.  Linda made an onion, mushroom, tomato Ragu, and served it over the leftover power grains.  It was very tasty.  After dinner I went to Best Buy to get the Apple TV device while Linda prepared fresh strawberries for dessert.  Fresh strawberries are a favorite treat of ours.  She served them with small pieces of Dandelion Small Batch Chocolate made from 70% Ambanja Madagascar 2013 Harvest beans.  The chocolate was excellent and unique.  It was a thank you gift from our son and daughter-in-law for Linda’s babysitting services while they were in San Francisco, California.

We connected the Apple TV box to one of our HD TV/monitors and went through the setup procedure.  We decided to test it on some PBS content, which required us to set up an account with PBS and enter a validation code that the Apple TV box provided.  We also downloaded an app onto Linda’s iPad2 that allowed it to mirror whatever was on its screen to the Apple TV.

We used the mirroring feature to watch Season 1, Episode 5 of Doc Martin, but it proved to be unusable.  The image was fine on the iPad2 but the Apple TV could not keep up.  I found that to be odd as our home WiFi network should have more than enough bandwidth to deliver the data stream between the devices, but maybe not.  I presumed that the limiting factor in our network was the data rate coming into our DSL gateway from our AT&T landline, but that was obviously fast enough to deliver the content from the gateway to the iPad without buffering hesitation.

We turned off the mirroring and finished watching the episode on the iPad.  Still, the content delivered directly from the gateway to the Apple TV looked great, and the mirroring will be useful for showing photos and anything else on our iPads.  We may reconfigure the Apple TV to use one of our other wireless networks and see if that helps.

 

2014/06/04 (W) Indian Street Food

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After working hard on our fire pit project the last three days we took it easy today.  I put a load of laundry in to run while we had breakfast and browsed our blog and news feeds.  A couple of recent installments from NutritionFacts.org reminded us yet again why we are following a whole-food plant-based way of eating.  I made follow up phone calls to various contractors and left messages as no one seems to answer phones anymore.  We often do not answer our phones if we don’t recognize the number or the caller ID is blocked, but we are not running businesses.  I did get hold of Ed and we had a nice chat about the restricted water flow problem in his Aqua-Hot and what he did to fix it.  I’m starting to form the impression that these are “fussy” high maintenance units.

I got a call from Chuck in reply to my e-mail to him yesterday.  He is working on a project to replace the conventional bulbs in his side cargo lights with LEDs.  He found a source for a double contact base that fits in place of an 1157 bulb.  He can solder the wires from the LED arrays to the base and plug it in; no modification of the cargo light housing or wiring needed.  I like those kinds of solutions.

I got a call back from Darryll Mech at DCM Heating and Cooling.  Darryll installed a garage heater and a furnace/air-conditioner for the addition to our previous house.  He is going to schedule a time to come back to the new house and figure out exactly what we need to do to prep the house for natural gas.  It is going to involve running additional black pipe, installing a garage furnace and a small furnace/air-conditioner for the library, and then converting the kitchen stove, whole house generator, and hot water baseboard furnace to natural gas.  We have a local guy (TOMTEK) who services the hot water baseboard furnace, so we will probably have him do the conversion on that unit.  We also have a company that installed and services the whole house generator and will probably have them do the conversion on that unit along with the annual maintenance.  We would like to have all of this done, except the appliance conversions, in August.  The natural gas pipeline and hookup is scheduled for “late summer to early fall.”  When I talked to the contractor it sounded like that meant the end of August to early October.  I hope it’s closer to the former than the later.

Scott Barnes from The Renewal Group in Hartland, Michigan retuned my call.  He wasn’t able to work today due to the rain so he came over to discuss our pole/bus barn project.

We got together with Steve and Karen Limkemann for dinner this evening and then went to their house in Westland to visit.  As we moved to being vegetarians and then vegans Indian food rose towards the top of our list of favorite cuisines, and one of our favorite restaurants in all of SE Michigan is Neehee’s in Canton.  Neehee’s is a small, unassuming semi-fast food place that serves “Indian vegetarian street food.” As the name implies, you will not find any dishes with meat, fish, or fowl.  You will, however, find dishes made with paneer (an Indian cheese) and yogurt.  They also serve ice cream.  They have a nice selection of vegan dishes, however, and some of the vegetarian dishes can be made vegan on request.  It’s a long way for us to drive just to have dinner, but very much on our way to Steve and Karen’s place.  They were good sports and agreed to try it.

The menu had changed since the last time we were there.  The “Indo-Chinese” section was gone, and with it one of our favorite dishes, a fried cauliflower in a spicy sweet and sour sauce.  We had the Special Gujarati Thali which consisted of nine different curries and sauces, two types of puri (crepes, thin breads), and rice.  It was very good.  Steve and Karen were not as thrilled with their dishes, but the issue seemed to be a bit too much “heat.”  Almost all Indian food (that we have had) is spicy, in the sense of being pungent and aromatic, and some of it is “hot”, in the sense of having a burning sensation in the mouth.

We drove to Steve and Karen’s house after dinner, looked at photos from trips, and talked at length about past and future travels.  Steve had resurrected some very old computer games and had them running on his Raspberry Pi and displayed on their large screen TV.  We played one for a while based loosely on A Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.  It would have been a trip down memory lane if I had any memory of having played it years ago, but I didn’t, so it was a new old experience for me.  He also demonstrated their Roku device, which connects to their WiFi network and streams a wide variety of programming to their television.  Much of it is free, some of it involves a monthly subscription, and some of it is “pay-per-view.”  It might be part of a solution for us at home.

 

2014/06/03 (T) Work-n-Play

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Linda made a tofu scramble for breakfast with sautéed onions, mushrooms, and asparagus.  Nutritional yeast, soy sauce, salt, and pepper rounded out the dish.  The texture and taste is very similar to the same dish made with eggs.

We resumed work on the fire pit at 9:30 AM and had it finished by 1 PM with the original burn pile raked out level.  I did not count the number of bricks we used but I think it was around 80.  The weather was much more pleasant for this work than the previous two days with highs in the 70’s, lower humidity, and brisk west winds.  I would like to get a six foot diameter metal fire ring and install it centered in the fire pit and flush with the top of the top course of blocks.  The space between the blocks and the metal ring would be filled with dirt and a top layer of rock such as egg rock.

We had a light lunch of apple slices and chickpea salad spread on rye toast and then got cleaned up.  I worked at my desk for a few hours, off-loading photographs from the Sony alpha 100 and onto my Dell laptop.  I edited blog posts going back to May 26 and uploaded the ones through May 31st.

Ed Roelle (Great Lakes Converted Coaches chapter) called and left a message while were working in the yard.  The message indicated that he had spent the last five days working on his Aqua-Hot hydronic heating system.  Apparently the fresh water tubing was clogged, severely restricting the water flow.  He attributed this to the extremely hard water in Florida where they have spent most of their winters in their Royale Coach bus conversion.  He knew we had just spent the winter there and wanted to make me aware of the potential issue.  I was vaguely aware of having read, or been told, that the Aqua-Hot units really prefer to have softened water run through them.  We have a portable water softener that I used to fill the fresh water tank most if the time we were in Florida, so I am hopeful that we are avoiding this problem to some extent.

We met Kate at The Pound in downtown Brighton at 6:30 PM.  The rooftop patio was being used for a private party so we had to sit downstairs.  They had the roll up doors open, so there was plenty of fresh air.  Kate brought her official certificate from the Guinness Book of World Records for her participation in the Rosie The Riveter event last year at Willow Run Airport.  She brought her iPad and shared photos of some of the places she and Brian had been in the last six months, including the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas.  Kate is a very good photographer, and SXSW affords unique photographic opportunities due to the stage lighting at the various venues.

Linda and I had large dinner salads that were excellent and Kate had a chicken wrap.  A few bottles of beer were consumed as well.  After dinner we went for a stroll on the boardwalk along the Mill Pond.  There were lots of Mallards and Canadian Geese with young but the highlight for use were the turtles and 30″ carp.  As best we could identify them the smaller and more numerous turtles were painted turtles, Michigan’s state reptile.  We also saw half a dozen common snapping turtles, a couple of them quite large.  We strolled around Main Street until we found ourselves in front of Two Brothers Coffee Shop and decided to have an after dinner cup of coffee.  By the time we finished it was after 9:30 PM and Kate needed to get back to Ypsilanti, tomorrow being a work day for her.  We got home and watched the next episode of Doc Martin on Amazon Instant Video.

 

2014/06/02 (M) Fire Pit Project

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I resumed work on our fire pit today.  The probability of rain jumped up and back down at 10 AM, but the rain held off.  The revised forecast had the probability back up starting in the late afternoon and remaining elevated through the evening and overnight.  Clouds streamed in from the southwest all day.  It was warm (~80) with 70% humidity, but the clouds provided much needed relief from the direct sun.

The fire pit being constructed around the old burn pile.

The fire pit being constructed around the old burn pile.  View to NE towards the marsh,

Keith was mowing our neighbor’s lawn, which he does every week, and I waved him down to see if he had time to also do ours.  Our normal schedule is every other week, but our clay soil is holding a lot of water that, combined with the abundant sunshine of the past five days, has caused everything to grow; a lot.  He got it all done before the rains came, which was great.

Looking NE towards the marsh.

Looking east towards the pond.

Linda made her scrumptious chickpea (garbanzo bean) salad/spread and we had some for lunch while Keith mowed the area of the yard around the fire pit.  She served it on toasted rye bread with fresh Bing (sweet) cherries on the side.  Linda loves rye bread and will eat anything on it including peanut butter and jelly.  I really like rye bread for certain things, but not others.  Hummus and onion; yum.  Chickpea spread; absolutely.  PB&J; no way.  Of course in a former culinary life it was always my favorite for a ham and Swiss cheese sandwich.  Rye bread is still an agreeable choice for sandwiches made from the “fake” cold cuts we occasionally buy, including “ham and Swiss” and “pastrami'” both with mustard, of course.

Looking SSW towards the house.

Looking SSW towards the house.

I took a few photographs after lunch and then worked for another hour or so until I hit my personal wall and knew I was done for the day.  I gathered all of my tools into the wheelbarrow and rolled it back up to the garage.  A cool shower and a long nap had me feeling almost human again just in time for dinner.  A quiet evening with a small glass of Egri Merlot and a piece of the (vegan) chilled double chocolate torte, followed by Season 1, Episode 4 of Doc Martin.  What’s not to like?

 

2014/06/01 (N) Farmer’s Market

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As of today I have been “retired” for two years.  It has been a very busy, and very satisfying, couple of years and I don’t see that trend changing anytime soon.

Madeline in her Junior Park Ranger outfit.

Madeline in her Junior Park Ranger outfit.

Starting around this time of year the Howell Farmer’s Market sets up outdoors every Sunday morning around the old courthouse in the heart of downtown and operates from 9:00 AM to ~1:00 PM.  During the colder months the market moves indoors and only operates every other week, featuring crafts and prepared foods, such as baked goods, jams, and pickles rather than locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables.  When we were both still working we used to spend Sunday mornings at Panera.  We still go there on occasion, but if we are around, and the weather is nice, we prefer to spend an hour walking through the market and buying locally grown fresh organic produce.

Our son, Brendan, called last night to check on our health and we suggested that he and Shawna, and Madeline drive up in the morning and we could all go to the Howell Farmer’s Market and then visit at the house.  Shawna is deep into her professional life as a professor and researcher at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor and is currently putting her tenure package together, so Sunday is not really a day off for her.  Brendan drove up with grand-daughter Madeline and met us at the market around 9:45 AM.  She was finally big enough to wear the “Park Ranger” outfit we bought for her at Yellowstone National Park last summer.  Too cute.

Madeline in her new Adirondack chair with matching table.

Madeline in her new Adirondack chair with matching table.

June 1st is still early for the fresh produce that will eventually be available in abundance at the Farmers Market, but it’s a great time of year for locally grown organic asparagus.  Linda bought some to use for dinner along with onions, potatoes, and eggplant.  One of the things we like about the Howell market is that several local area farms set up stalls and sell produce they harvested the day or two before.  Other vendors sell fresh baked goods that they made or preserved foods that they personally prepared.

On our way to the market we stopped at Meijer’s to get a blow up beach ball for Madeline to play with in the yard.  While we were there we found a small plastic “Adirondack” chair with a matching table that she was just big enough to use.  Back at our house she picked up quickly that this was her special chair and seemed to enjoy using it.  Brendan and Madeline stayed until about 12:30 PM.  She is usually down for her only nap by 1:00 PM, so Brendan changed her outfit, got her buckled into her car seat, and headed back to Ann Arbor.

Madeline and her dad.

Madeline and her dad.

We had a light lunch after which I decided to work on our fire pit project.  I am not sure why I felt I had to do this in the afternoon sun on an 84 degree day, but I did.  I believe my thinking was that I was sick and tired of being sick and tired and thought the physical activity and deep breathing would be good for me, not to mention the feeling of accomplishment at getting some blocks set in the ground nice and level.  The base course is where all the work is; it requires digging a trench in the dirt and then filling  it in with gravel and sand and compacting it to create a proper base that allows the first course of block to be firmly planted, fully supported, level side-to-side (block-to-block), and sloping back slightly towards the inside of the curve; all while making the curvature of blocks as circular as possible.  I worked all afternoon, with help from Linda, and by 4:30 PM had seven first course blocks set with six second course blocks on top.  We are building the fire pit into the side of a slight hill, so the second course of blocks will be the first one that forms a complete circle and should take about 28 blocks for the diameter of fire pit we are creating.

Madeline knows about cameras.

Madeline knows about cameras.

We are using the blocks for the fire pit from the old retaining walls by the basement walkout as these walls are being replaced with low boulder walls with proper drainage and grading.  We will have many more of these blocks than we can use in the fire pit project and most of them will be used to edge planting beds around the house.

We have been thinking about getting an umbrella for our patio table so Linda looked for one online.  Lowe’s had a selection, so we headed to our local store to see what they had in stock.  We found one we liked, got a base to go with it, and picked up four bags of paver base and two bags of paver sand.  There is a 30% chance of thunderstorms in the forecast, but if we get a break on the weather we will have the materials on hand to continue working on the fire pit tomorrow.  We would also like to get a small street-legal utility trailer that we can tow behind the Honda Element and the Cub Cadet lawn tractor.  Lowe’s did not have anything like that so we stopped at Tractor Supply Company.  They had what I was looking for, sort of, but they were not street legal (no lights) and used a pin rather than a ball coupler.  We will keep looking.

Looking to the north. There is a lot yard in that direction.

Looking to the north. There is a lot yard in that direction.

 

Linda made roasted vegetables for dinner (asparagus, onions, potatoes, and eggplant with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper) and served it with a simple green salad and a side of “power grains” consisting of red and white quinoa, millet, and buckwheat.  We finished off the evening with Season 1, Episode 3 of Doc Martin on Amazon Video, which we get as part of our Amazon Prime account.  Our AT&T High Speed Internet is not very fast, but it seems to be able to keep up with streaming video to an iPad, at least most of the time.

 

 

 

Lots of yard to play in at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Lots of yard to play in at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.

2014/05/30 (F) Outlook Contacts

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I have had a Palm PDA for most of the last 13 years, and for most of that time it has been a Palm Tungsten T3.  While I was still working at Wayne RESA it was synced to their GroupWise e-mail and calendar system but also synced to the Palm Desktop software on my laptop for Contacts and Tasks and my Passwords Plus program.  I did not use the Tasks list much, but I did keep all of my personal contacts, and some of my business contacts, on the Palm along with all of my encrypted passwords.  Linda also had a Palm PDA for a while and had it synced to Outlook on her office computer.  Her PDA quit working years ago and never got replaced.  Once she was settled in at the bakery she did not have a need for a PDA.

When I retired I reverted back to using the Palm calendar, which I always liked.  I even installed a new Lithium Ion battery, which was no easy job, to prolong the unit’s life.  But three things have converged to finally spell the end of the Palm era for me: 1) the unrecoverable failure of the Passwords Plus app on the Tungsten T3;  2) the porting of our home Outlook Express information into Outlook 2007 after the loss of our twmi.rr.com e-mail address, and;  3) getting a new laptop computer due to the end of support for Windows XP.

Over the winter we were able to purchase an updated version of Passwords Plus (CS 2.0) that synced through the cloud.  Versions were available that ran on our iPads, Linda’s Samsung laptop, and my then current Win XP Dell laptop.  It is also available for Android (I think) but so far we have not installed it on our phones.  The new PWP apps allowed us to successfully migrate all of our passwords from the old Palm version and make them available on four devices with back-up and synchronization via the DataViz cloud servers.  Just this past week I installed PWP CS 2.0 on my new Win 8.1 machine and got it synced with the other four.  When the passwords are available and secure, life is good.

When we moved from the previous house to the current house last year we lost our long-time home e-mail address.  I took that as an opportunity to export our home address book and all of our personal e-mails from Outlook Express and import them into Outlook 2007 on my Win XP Dell laptop.  Since that time I have continued to build out the address book with contact information, but I still have and use my Palm Contacts.  Yesterday I learned that I could export my Palm contacts in a vCard (.vcf) format.  Further research suggested that I could convert the file to a comma separated value  (.csv) format and then import it into Outlook 2013 on my new laptop.  It would be a lot more work than it sounds as the vcf –> csv conversion would require me to review each entry, but it would still be a lot less work than re-entering everything by hand.

I figured I would need the better part of a long day to accomplish this task, so before rushing into it I decided to do more research.  Today I discovered that there are add-ins available for Outlook that will take my single .vcf Palm output file and import it into Outlook directly, as long as I am willing to pony up the $$.  The idea of spending $20 -$25 for a program I will use once does not sit well with me, but the idea of sitting all day reviewing entries one at a time does not sit well with me either.  If I want to clean up duplicates, I can do that semi-automatically for another $25.  I’m thinking about it.

The calendar is another matter.  The Palm calendar can be “archived” but not exported.  My Palm calendar goes back at least a decade, and this history may just have to remain in the Palm Desktop on the old laptop.  On the upside, once I start using the Outlook calendar I may be able to set it up so I can access the address book and calendar on my Android phone.  That would be nice; I have long enjoyed having my contacts and calendar information “in my pocket,” or “on my belt,” depending on my clothing choices that day.

It was yet another beautiful day today; when Michigan weather is nice, it’s the best.  Linda decided to do some weeding in the front planting beds and I decided to install the new rear-view mirror on the bus.  You just can’t let a day like this go by without doing something outside.  After a little break we decided to work in the back yard.  We had several large pine trees that had large limbs broken over the winter.  I used our pole saw to cut those loose and dragged them over near an old burn pile.  I cut the small branches off, cut up the larger central limbs, and made a pile.  We gathered up some of the dried grass clippings from Tuesday and stuffed them under the limbs and twigs.  We added a few old, large logs to the pile that were laying around in the yard and soaked everything in diesel fuel.  Forget gasoline and charcoal starter fluid; let the diesel fuel soak in (it does not evaporate like gasoline) and put a match to it.  You will get a sustained fire.

After the fire had burned down to a smolder we moved some of the blocks from the rear retaining walls and laid them around the burn pile.  We’ve decided to use some of them to build a fire pit and wanted to see how many it would take to make a circle of the appropriate size.  We plan to build the pit 2 or 3 courses high on the low side.

Kimber, from GM Construction LLC (GM Decks), called to let me know that Gary had taken ill and would not make it out to the house late this afternoon to discuss our pole barn project.  We will try again next week.  Village Landscape Development also did not show up or call today.  I will give Steve a call tomorrow and suggest that we set a firm start date for Monday June 16.

The afternoon mail brought a Jury Summons for Linda for a two week commitment for U. S. District Court in Flint, Michigan starting Monday, June 30.  That interferes with some travel plans we have and will now likely have to adjust.  She won’t be able to find out if she needs to report on the 30th until 5 PM on Friday the 27th.

 

2014/05/26 (M) Memorial Day

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This is what I think about on Memorial Day.  For most Americans Memorial Day, or rather the Memorial Day weekend, marks the beginning of the summer “play” season; time to prep the cottage or the get the RV out of storage, get out the summer “toys”, attend summer camps (or summer school), and take vacations.  It has a much more serious and official meaning, of course, which is to remember those who served and died in the defense of our country while on active duty.  It is not necessarily a day to honor “all” veterans, although it seems to have turned into that.  We have another holiday for that purpose; it’s called Veteran’s Day.

Regardless, there is no doubt that each citizen owes the existence of our nation, and the freedoms we enjoy within it, to those who served to build it and defend it, and especially those who paid the ultimate price.  It a shame that some of those lives were wasted in the name of foolish nationalism, but the shame is not the soldier’s, it is the government’s.  And the government is merely a political manifestation of the will of the majority.  In our system the majority rules (or is supposed to) but that does not always make its actions right.  Those who served did so with a sense of duty without which we could not have a functioning military.  My father survived the invasion of Normandy on D-Day.  He was one of the troops who took Omaha Beach.  His unit suffered 90% casualties.  He was barely 19 years old at the time.  He was wounded on the drive inland through France and received the Purple Heart and almost 50 years later a unit commendation for the service his unit rendered that day and in the days that followed.

My cough subsided enough that both Linda and I finally got a little sleep last night.  She made her yummy vegan pancakes for breakfast and my sense of taste had returned to the point that I enjoyed them.  I still wasn’t feeling up to much physical activity, but managed to pull up all of the stakes for the pole barn and mark the location of each one with green marker paint.  I was feeling well enough to work at my desk and spent a good portion of the rest of the day downloading and installing apps on my new ASUS laptop.

I was working at my computer this afternoon when I had one of those associative moments where I suddenly remembered something I was trying to recall a week ago.  As a young pre-teenager in the early 1960’s there were three things that I had set as “life goals” but I could only remember two of them, although I was clear that I had accomplished all three.  I was looking at the support thread for the Participant’s Database WordPress plug-in, where there was a lot of detail on “coding,” when I recalled that the missing goal was to “learn to program a computer.”  Duh!

These “life goals” were not career goals; they were just ideas that sounded interesting and “out there” at the time.  I actually ended up “programming computers” for a living for a while and did some very fancy FORTRAN programming for my electrical engineering Masters Degree project and again to create the Monte-Carlo simulations that were the foundation of my doctoral research and dissertation.  My other two goals where to “understand nuclear energy” and “learn to fly an airplane” both of which I also accomplished, at least to my satisfaction.  I never made a living in aviation, although my dad spent almost his entire adult working life in the aerospace industry, both defense and space.  I did end up studying physics as an engineering student, and teaching it at the high school level, so in a sense understanding nuclear energy also touched on earning a living at one point in my life.  As an Air Force ROTC cadet from 1973 – 1976 I was a pilot candidate.  If not for the sudden end of the Vietnam Conflict, I would have made my living in aviation, at least for a while.

Perhaps these seem like strange life goals for a pre-teen, but they were very forward-looking and exotic notions in the early 1960’s.  The fact that I accomplished them does not mean my life is complete or that I have accomplished everything else I attempted in the last half century.  Nor does it mean that I ran out of things to do or the motivation to do them.  I simply find it interesting that I accomplished them and find a certain satisfaction in that.  To this day whenever I see an airplane fly by I wonder how many people see that same plane and wonder what it must be like to fly it or are mystified by how it is able to stay in the air?  I also wonder how people manage to make sense of a world connected together by technologies about which they have no real understanding, or how they understand a universe ruled at its most fundamental level by randomness and chaos.  Downloading and installing software leaves me a certain amount of time to think, and I downloaded and installed a lot of software today.

Linda made a wonderful vegan potato salad this afternoon and we had it for dinner with jumbo vegan hot dogs, with mustard, onion, and relish, of course.  And grapes; but no adult beverages as they are contraindicated for my medications, and frankly are not the least bit satisfying when ill.  I know I’m getting better when my appetite starts to return.  I will know I am fully recovered when I once again look forward to a glass of wine with dinner.

Technomadia did a one hour live video chat at 8 PM with RVillage founder/CEO Curtis Coleman.  It was a good, relaxed chat with enough questions from the audience to keep it moving.  I think they had 45 people online at one time.  They use UStream for these live video events and were interrupted three or four times by commercials.  The first one I got was in Spanish, but someone else got one in French.  The problem was that the hosts do not get a heads up that UStream is going to cut them off, so they keep talking until someone messages them that they are not on the air.  But it’s a “free” service, and of course almost everything in life that’s free has a hidden cost, especially if it involves the Internet.  Somewhat ironically the RVillage website went offline during the broadcast.  The head of development was monitoring the chat and got right on it as soon as it was reported; something about “backend server overload.”  RVillage passed the 7,500 member level just before the video chat went live.  Whatever the issue was they had it straightened out quickly.  RVillage lives on very robust servers run by Amazon.

 

20140418 (N) Taxi Turn Oops

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We complied with the Fairgrounds’ request that we not depart until today, but we wanted to be on the road by 9 AM.  We were up at 7:30 AM and got busy right away with our departure routine.  The 5th Wheel parked next to us decided to leave last night.  They were from Alaska and the husband was an instructor for the RV Driving School.  He had also been an “ice road trucker” at one time.  I told him that I was not sure what the best technique was for exiting the infield over soft ground with freshly spread loose gravel.  He suggested the following technique: 1) Pull up the tag axles to put more weight on the drive tires and to keep them from dragging on the ridges created by the space between the drive tires; 2) transmission in 1st gear (manual selection); 3) Keep the engine at 900 – 1,100 RPM (high-idle) and avoid quick changes in engine RPM to keep from spinning the drive tires; 4) keep moving; don’t stop.

We were ready to go by 8:00 AM and said our farewells to Butch and Fonda.  We were anxious to get home and decided not to stop at the dump stations.  Linda went ahead of me in the car to block any traffic from entering the infield through the gate.  I made it through the soft part of the infield just fine using the technique as previously described.  I got across the horse track without difficulty and then made a sharp turn onto an interior road where we could stop to hook up the car.  As I came around the corner I clipped a sign with the driver side rear view mirror.  In my defense I thought it was a cloth banner, but it wasn’t.  The mirror was pulled loose from the motorized base and plastic parts were broken in the process.  Butch and Fonda were pulling out behind us and stopped to see what the problem was.  We used some of the Rescue Tape we keep on board to tape the mirror onto the base and adjusted it by hand as best we could.  I had an adequate view down the driver’s side of the coach, allowing me to drive it safely.  We hooked up the car and were on our way by 9:00 AM.

The rest of the trip was smooth sailing and without incident.  We exited the fairgrounds onto Monroe Street east to County 29 north to IN-4 east to IN-13 north to US-20 east to I-69 north to I-96 east to MI-59 east to Hacker Rd south to our house.  We had light traffic and pleasant weather for the whole drive.  When we pulled up in front of our house (on the street) Linda got out to help position the coach in the driveway.  Jasper immediately came out from under the passenger seat and got down in the stairwell to look out the lower window and I had the sense that he recognized we were home.  As soon as we got parked, Linda took the cats inside and then took off for the grocery store while I plugged in the shore power, unhooked the car, and started unloading the bus.

I spent a little time getting a couple of blog posts uploaded to WordPress before John and Diane arrived around 5:00 PM.  Linda made a very nice green salad with walnuts and dried cranberries and a bow-tie pasta dish with sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms, garlic, and pesto for dinner.  John and Diane brought a bottle of Barefoot Sweet Red wine which we had with the meal.  We had fresh mixed berries with biscotti cookies for dessert.  Tomorrow was a work day for everyone but me, so John and Diane took their leave around 8:30 PM and Linda headed off to bed shortly thereafter.  Since I did not have to get up at Oh-Dark-Thirty I worked at my desk for a while before retiring for the night.  Linda has not been feeling well for the last few days and cannot figure out if she has a cold or allergies or both.  I’ve been tired too, but rallies can do that, especially when we are working.

 

2014/05/17 (S) Working While We Wait

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As soon as the fairgrounds and Escapade management had asked those of us parked on the horse track infield to delay our departure until Sunday (with a free night’s stay Saturday evening) we decided to comply with their request.  Our friends, Butch and Fonda, are parked next to us and also decided to delay their departure.  Butch and I hung out this morning while Linda worked with Fonda on their business accounting.

Butch and I were not having any luck solving all of the world’s problems so we decided to investigate our Aqua-Hot problem.  The expansion reservoir had apparently overflowed again so I cleaned up the coolant as best I could.  I turned on our Aqua-Hot so Butch could observe the smoke on startup and try to detect if it had an odor associated with it.  The unit startup up on the first try and produced a lot of white smoke.  The white smoke eventually disappeared, but it took quite a while.  Neither of us detected the slightly sweet smell of combusted coolant.

I had hoped to have a definitive analysis of our Aqua-Hot situation, but I ended up with data that was inconclusive, at best, and inconsistent, at worst.  Recent experiences with a failure to start, excessive white smoke on startup, needing to add coolant, and failure to hold pressure all suggested a coolant leak, possibly into the combustion chamber.   On the other hand, it started fine today and the white smoke did eventually clear up.  There were alternative explanations for some of the data and these always need to be considered.  Jumping to conclusions about what is wrong with a bus/conversion can be unnecessarily expensive.

The loss of pressure may have been due to our inability to keep the pressure tube vertical because of the tight quarters.  The pressure is released by pushing this tube to the side where it connects to the radiator fill spout.  The loss of coolant could be due to the undersized expansion reservoir overflowing when the unit heats up.  I know for a fact that it does this if I have too much coolant in the reservoir when the unit is cold.  To pin down whether or not there is a coolant leak into the combustion chamber I will have to remove the burner assembly from the combustion chamber, pressurize the closed coolant system, and visually check for leaks.  Even if I don’t find a leak there that will not rule out a leak somewhere.  Ugh.  Aqua-Hot units are expensive to replace and the model we have is not longer made, so our only direct replacement option is a rebuilt unit.  The unit in the coach is a rebuilt one that was installed sometime between Sep 2009 and April 2010.

We quit working with the Aqua-Hot around 1:00 PM to have lunch before heading over to the Tri-Chapter Rally (TCR).  A little before 2:00 PM we drove over to the AG Hall for the opening of the TCR.  The TCR is an annual joint event of SKP Chapters 6 (Michigan – Great Lakes), 36 (Ohio – Erie Shores), and 51 (Indiana – Hoosier Neighbor).  The TCR is usually held in late June on the same weekend as the ARRL Field Day ham radio operating event so we have never been able to attend.  Because Escapade was in Goshen, Indiana the TCR was scheduled at the same fairgrounds immediately following the national rally.

We are members of Chapter 6 and Butch/Fonda are members of Chapter 51 but neither of us registered for the TCR because we had planned on leaving today.  Since we were “stuck” here we figured we would make an appearance at the 2 PM opening of the rally and play it by ear from there.  It turned out that 2:00 PM was the beginning of registration; the opening social was scheduled for 4:00 PM with dinner at 5:30 PM.  The rally organizer said we could come to the social without registering, but wanted us to pay if we were staying for dinner.  That seemed reasonable and we indicated that we would return at 4:00 PM to be sociable for an hour.

We never made it back.  By the time 4 o’clock came around we were all tired and none of us felt like being sociable.  We eventually got hungry and went to the South Side Soda Shop (SSSS).  SSSS was featured in an episode of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives (Triple-D).  It was appropriately quaint, the wait staff was very friendly, and the food was good and plentiful; exactly what you would expect from a place featured on Triple-D.  Linda and I had garden salads with a dressing we had never had before; oil and capers.  It was delicious; a new favorite.  We split a veggie sandwich, flat bread with pesto and hummus, and an order of curly fries.  The fries alone would have been a meal!

Butch bought a WiFi Ranger Mobile and Go2 combo at the Escapade.  Earlier in the day he attached the Mobile unit to a couple of pieces of PVC pipe which he used as a mast by securing them to the driver’s side mirror on their bus.  He ran the coax in through a window and hooked it all together.  After dinner I worked with him to get the WFR Mobile/Go2 configured while Fonda visited with Linda.

I have done a couple of posts this past week that brought up concepts from aviation because I used to fly airplanes and thought there were interesting analogies to be made.  Well, here’s another one:  RVing, much like flying, is weather dependent, and more so than you might realize.  We have had to be pulled out of two different fairgrounds at the conclusion of week-long rallies where we were parked on grass and it rained (hard) most of the week.  Unless you only stay at campgrounds with paved roads and sites this will eventually happen.  When threatening weather is in your path, you ground yourself; a high profile vehicle with an amateur driver does not belong on the road in high winds, blinding rain, or icy conditions any more than a private pilot should be in the air under those conditions.  An RV has no more business crossing a flooded road than a car or pedestrian does, and the reason you have a home that can be moved is so you can get it out of harm’s way; RVs are not designed to be driven into tornadic storms, hurricanes, or blizzards.

We really need to be on the road Sunday morning as we have company coming for dinner that evening, Linda has to go into the bakery on Monday and Tuesday, and someone is coming to the house on Wednesday to discuss our pole barn project.  But just because we need to leave doesn’t mean we will be able to.  That will be decided by Mother Nature.  If we cannot get the bus out on Sunday Linda will take the car and return home and I will return with the bus (and the casts) when I can.

 

2014/05/08(R) Toad Lights

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The spring peepers are in full voice this time of year, but they do not wear headlamps.  In fact, they are frogs, not toads.  In the world of RV’s a car that is towed behind a motorhome is often referred to as a “towed” (noun) or “toad.”  Like anything being towed, the car has to have functioning tail lights, brake lights, and turn signals.  The existing lights on the car are often used for this, but there can be issues with arrangement, especially on newer vehicles.

Our Honda Element came equipped with a second set of rear bulbs that are not tied into the cars lighting circuits.  On the way home from Florida they quit working.  Visual inspect had revealed that the 6-pin connector on the bus had a couple of damaged pins.  As soon as we got home I picked up a new connector from a local RV store.  With a forecast high temperature of 81 degrees F, and no rain, today was the day to install it; but not until I had taken care of another important chore.

Steve (N8AR) arrived a little after 10 AM pulling Bruce’s (W8RA) enclosed trailer.  We took a few minutes to look at my proposed site for the communications tower and then headed over to Wayne’s (KD8H) place to pick up the tower sections and related components I had purchased on Monday.  We got there right at 11AM.  Wayne greeted us in the driveway and directed us around behind the house.  We loaded the steel fold over mount, motor, rotator, and bearing plate in the front if the trailer and then drove back to where the tower sections were stored and loaded those in.  The trailer had about 10 feet inside, front-to-rear, and we were able to get everything in and close/latch the doors.  We were on our way back to my QTH by noon.  By 1 PM we had unloaded everything, stacked the tower sections on the rear/lower deck, and stored the other components in the garage.  I walked Steve through the proposed pole barn site and then he headed home to hang drywall.

I gathered up the tools I needed for the connector project and arrayed them at the rear of the bus.  Simple projects never are, and this was no exception.  I removed the two screws that hold the connector into the bumped fascia and the discovered that I could not pull it out more than a 1/4 inch.  The connector housing has an insert with the pins on one side (facing out) and the wire connections on the side (facing in).  The insert is retained by a small screw on the top of the housing.  To work on this assembly you have to be able to pull the housing out far enough to remove the retaining screw.  You then need to have enough loose wire behind the connector to allow the insert to come out the front of the housing far enough that you can get to the small machine screws that that hold the wires.

The problem was that I did not have the necessary amount of loose wire.  There was plenty of wire, it just wasn’t loose.  I had to clip about a half dozen zip ties in the engine compartment and along the underside of the rear bumper, and remove a cable clamp, but I eventually freed up enough wire to pull the connector housing out far enough to work on it.

The wire connections on the insert were not done in a standard way per the directions that came with the new connector, so I made a diagram of how they were done.  (I should have rewired both the bus connector and the cable end to be standard, but I plan to replace this whole setup with an EZ*Connector system this summer.)  I disconnected the wires, which freed the insert, and slid the old housing off the end of the wire bundle.  I cleaned up the ends of the four wires, stripping away 1/4 inch of insulation and trimming off frayed strands.  I slipped the new housing over the wires, made the connections to the back of the insert, slid the insert into the housing, and secured up it with the retaining screw.  I slid the housing back into the bumper fascia and secured it with the two screws.

Before dressing all the wires I pulled the car behind the bus and connected the electrical cable between them to test the lights.  I connected the bus chassis batteries (there are two switches for this) and turned on the left turn signal.  All the lights on the bus were fine, but I still did not have lights on the car.  🙁  I had also had problems previously with the plug and socket on the car so I jiggled the connector and the lights started working.  I verified that I had tail and turn lights but could not test the brake lights as that takes two people.  (I could have turned the ignition on and that would have caused the brake lights to come on since the emergency/parking brakes were set.)

I suspected the problem was in the connector on the end of the cable, but it was sufficiently corroded that I could not get it apart.  I decided to spray all of the old connectors (3) with De-Ox-It, including inside the cable ends.  I then sprayed all if the connectors, including the new ones, with De-Ox-It Gold.  I plugged the cable back in to the bus and the car and retested the lights.  Everything was working, so I secured the wiring on the bus with new zip ties, put my tools away, and closed everything up.

Sometime during the afternoon I got a call from Bruce (W8RA) and took a break from the electrical work.  He had a friend who had purchased a used full-size tractor to pull a large 5th wheel.  The tractor had a KVH Trac-Vision R5 in-motion satellite dish and the owner wanted Bruce to help him get it working.  Bruce knew we had a motorhome and thought I might have some insight into how to do this.  The only advice I could offer was based on the satellite dish and electronics that were on our bus when we bought it.  In addition to the dish on the roof and the receiver in the coach there was a third box that went in-between the two.  I suspected that the KVH had something similar, but I wasn’t sure.

Linda had been babysitting all day so we had an Amy’s Indian dish with a nice salad for dinner.  It had been a warm, physical day so I started a load of laundry and we just relaxed after dinner.

 

2014/05/04 (N) Northwest Winds

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The weather yesterday was mostly cloudy with occasional light rain and the winds came up strong starting in the afternoon.  They tapered off by bedtime but resumed a hard blow this morning with low, puffy, white clouds streaming in from the northwest and making the trees dance.  It was a brighter morning than we have had most of the week as the sun played hide-n-seek with the clouds.  The temperature remained cool, making for a brisk day, but it was a nice change from the cool, overcast dreariness of the past week.  Except for Thursday, when the high temperature is supposed to hit 80, the daily high temps will be around 60 all week.

Linda made her scrumptious blueberry pancakes for breakfast and then went for a walk.  She had barely left the house when she returned, very excited, to tell me she had just seen a young albino deer running through our yard.  By the time I got outside it had moved on to the woods west of our property.  We often see the same deer day-after-day as they travel their circuit, so I also hope to see this one someday.

After checking in on the blogs I follow using the Feedly app on my iPad2 I made a couple of corrections to a recent blog post, approved a comment from our daughter-in-law (the first one has to be approved), and deleted the 59 spam comments that the Akismet plug-in/service trapped since last night.  I put a load of laundry in the washer and then spent some time looking online for a padded case for my new laptop computer and a replacement for one of our APC SmartUPS units that has failed.

With the move to tablet computers, the choice of laptops is diminishing, especially those with larger screens, and along with that fewer choices for accessories such as cases.  In the past 14 years I have always purchased larger roller cases, with separate cases for the computer that fit inside, as my laptop traveled with me every day everywhere I went.  I had the most recent of these cases with us in Florida and, after getting the computer/case and accessories out of it, I stored it in a closet (where it tended to be in the way).  The next time I touched it was when I unloaded it from the bus to bring back into the house.

It was clear from that experience that I do not need another roller case.  I do, however, want something that will protect my new laptop computer.  I think I have narrowed the choice down to the Everki Advanced or the Everki Lunar, both available through Amazon Prime.  The Advanced is very reasonably priced at under $40 and has generally favorable reviews, mentioning the ASUS “Republic of Gamers” (ROG) models in particular.  The Lunar has more storage space, and also has generally favorable reviews, but is over three times the price at just under $130.  Posts on the ASUS ROG Forum seem to favor one of the Everki backpack models, but I do not want a backpack style case.

Our failed APC uninterruptible power supply is a Smart-UPS SUA1000.  By trading it in on a SMT1000 we can save $75 off the retail price.  I need to confirm that the discounted price includes return shipping; the SUA1000 weighs 48 pounds.

I revised the RVillage Quick Start doc I created for the GLCC, CCO, and FTH RV clubs, making it generic for use by Bus Conversion Magazine or anyone else.  I then uploaded it to a new RVillage page on our website and revised a couple of other pages to link to the new one.  I then uploaded blog posts for the last three days.  I set up my new laptop in my office and installed seven more updates.

At breakfast yesterday I got a tip from Paul (N8BHT) on a used tower.  He e-mailed me the owner’s contact information later.  I called the owner, Wayne (KD8H), this afternoon and got a little more information about the tower.  It is an aluminum Heights Tower, 80 feet, with Fold-Over Kit (FOK) including the drive motor, a rotator and antenna mounting plate.  It is already on the ground and disassembled into sections.  Wayne is retired and I will likely go look at the tower tomorrow afternoon.  I e-mailed Paul (N8BHT), Mike (W8XH), and Steve (N8AR) to see if they were available to go with me.

Linda made lentil loaf for dinner with baked yams and fresh asparagus.  After dinner I drove to South Lyon for the May meeting of the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club.  SLAARC usually meets on the 2nd Sunday of the month but pulls the May meetings forward a week to avoid Mother’s Day.  Our topic of discussion this evening was the upcoming ARRL Field Day operating event, which takes place the last full weekend in June.  We had a couple of new hams at the meeting and afterwards several of the guys helped Christine, KD8VEA, get the PL tone set correctly on her radio so she was able to participate in a group QSO with Steve (N8AR), Mike (W8XH), Fred (AC8VL), and myself on the drive home.  In spite of what many people think, including some older/former hams, amateur radio is alive and well in the North America and all over the world.

 

2014/05/03 (S) Ham It Up

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Today started with breakfast out and felt like we were finally starting to get back into the flow.  We drove to South Lyon for the Saturday morning breakfast gathering of our South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club, as we do almost every Saturday morning when we at the house.  Steve (N8AR) gave me a lead on someone who might be willing to build our pole barn.  After breakfast we returned home and I walked Linda through the project I discussed yesterday with Steve for redoing the rear basement walkout retaining walls, drainage, and yard grading.

I worked on our blog and Linda worked on lunch preparations while we awaited the arrival of our daughter and son-in-law.  They have had Linda’s Honda Civic Hybrid since December and were returning it, so they drove two cars.  Linda got to visit with them in late February / early March, but I had not seen them since mid December.  We had a nice lunch of mixed greens salad and vegan Sloppy Joe’s with sweet gherkin pickles on the side.  Fresh strawberries and carrot cake cookies provided a sweet ending to the meal.  We had a nice visit.

Steve from Village Landscaping Development stopped by with a brochure, business card, and the project proposal written up on a more official estimating form.  We will take a few days to think about, but it’s a very good proposal and I am 99% certain we will hire him to do this work.  It would be nice to get it done in late May to early June, between The SKP Escapade and the GLAMARAMA rallies, but it may not be dry enough by then.  If not, it will have to wait until early July after we return from the installation ceremonies for Linda’s sister who is assuming one of the top leadership positions in the St. Louis Province of the Congregation (Sisters) of St. Joseph.

A little later Phil Jarrel, from Best Precision Grading, came by to take a second look at the site preparation and grading work for the pole barn.  We walked the site and agreed that I could/should change the orientation of the building just a bit from where it is currently staked.  We also discussed how to make sure the barn was located behind the front line of the house and talked through the permitting and construction process.  He did not have any builders to recommend, but he did recommend a concrete contractor for the pit and floor.

We did quite a few construction projects at the previous house over the years but the pole barn involves elements that are new to me, and I now have to deal with a Township for a land use permit and the County for building and grading permits.  I am fairly set on the size, location, and basic design/materials, but we not have settled on a builder or materials supplier.  Consequently, we still do not have an accurate total cost estimate.  Until everything is in place, and the cost is known, nothing can move forward.  Meanwhile, the days keep flipping over on the calendar.

 

2014/05/02 (F) A Day At Home

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Linda went into the bakery today so she was up early and left at 6:30 AM to get ahead of the worst of the morning rush hour traffic headed into Detroit from the northwest.  She took my new laptop to have some critical software installed.  With the 17″ screen, the computer does not fit in any of our existing padded carry cases, so that is an accessory I will need to get.  I also have my eye on an external BluRay/DVD/CD optical media drive (read/write).  The BluRay disks will store anywhere from 25 to 45 GB of data which is more practical that CDs or DVDs for non-volatile /off-site storage of photographs and critical documents.

We only have one car at the moment, so I was stuck at home today (I don’t use the motorcoach to run errands).  Being stuck at home on a chilly, overcast, rainy day is not necessarily a bad thing.  After a light breakfast and my morning coffee I started a load of laundry and worked at my desk for a while.

I took a break from desk work and opened the front of one of our APC Smart UPS units that had died while we were away.  I had replaced batteries in a couple of these units but could not recall if this was one of them.  It was not.  When I opened the batter compartment I found the batteries badly swollen and I was unable to remove them from the case.  The tags on them indicated that they were from 2010.  The only thing I can think of that would have caused this was a failure in the battery charging circuit which continued to charge the batteries after they were already fully charged.  That would cause them to gas and swell as they are sealed AGM batteries.  We were probably lucky they did not explode.  Given this situation I will replace the whole UPS rather than put new batteries in it.  APC usually offers a trade-in allowance (called Trade-Ups) for the same or larger UPS.  Otherwise I have to dispose of the whole thing as electronic hazardous waste.

Steve Degenais of Village Landscape Development stopped by mid-morning to discuss two separate projects:  1) stairs to get from the pull-thru driveway to the front porch, and;  2) redoing the retaining walls on either side of the basement walkout.

When we bought the house last year it had a makeshift pull-thru driveway and no stairs or pathway to the front porch, which is the main entrance to the house.  The previous owners used the Florida room, which is just an enclosed patio slab between the house and the garage, as an entry/breezeway.  It was empty and they left it unlocked, entering the house through a door to the kitchen that locked.  We use the Florida room as a library, so we do not leave it open.  We also had the pull-thru driveway substantially improved last spring so we can park our bus with the entrance door opposite the front door of the house.  Carrying things back and forth between the house and the bus on a steep grassy slope is an accident waiting to happen.  There is a four foot drop in 18 feet from the front porch to the driveway and we need a proper set of stairs.

Although we have a walkout basement, the house is not set into the side of a hill.  If you walk around the house it appears to sit on top of a mound.  It appears that dirt was piled around the basement walls, except by the walkout, and graded away from house, more or less.  In the back it slopes in towards the walkout.  There are remnants of an old railroad tie retaining wall and it appears that sometime later someone tried to stabilize the two slopes with plastic held in place with small boulders, pieces of cinder block, used bricks, and whatever else was handy to throw in there.  That apparently wasn’t working very well so they built two retaining walls, each about seven courses high (~3 ft), with blocks meant for decorative edging of plant beds.  It’s also clear that they did not make any provision for water drainage behind the walls and yet two downspouts from the roof gutter system discharged into these areas before I used corrugated plastic pipe to carry the water away from the house.  The pipes are still there, sitting on the surface right where I put them last spring. The earth behind the walls has obviously moved over time and the walls are buckling in places.  Mud pushes through and around them.  It’s not pretty on several levels.

Our sump pump runs quite a bit in the spring and we need to get rainwater away from the foundation as much as possible.  Drainage and stabilization of the slopes are my primary concern but I always care about aesthetics.  Steve and I discussed an approach using small boulders to make low retaining walls backed with fabric and drain pipes to capture and drain the water far out into the yard.  The slopes would be re-graded to provide runoff away from the house, covered with landscape fabric, and then covered with small boulders and “egg rock.”  The drain lines would all be buried and run to an exit point far out in the yard.

I spent much of the rest of the day working on our website and blog with the help of our cats, who were a bit needier than usual following their visit to the veterinarian yesterday.  Sometime during the day a package arrived from Amazon.  On Wednesday we ordered an Amped|Wireless SR20000G (wireless router/repeater/access point) to replace the one Mike (W8XH) gave us just before we left for Florida.  The SR20000G worked very well for us in our bus and is now a permanent part of our on-board communications technology arsenal.  We ordered it through Amazon Prime and had it in two days; no extra charge for shipping.

Linda picked up some groceries on her way home from the bakery and we had a simple dinner consisting of a very tasty spinach salad and an Amy’s Roasted Vegetable Pizza.  After dinner she worked on food for tomorrow’s visit with our daughter and son-in-law.  She made her fabulous vegan Sloppy Joe’s and carrot cake cookies while I worked with my new notebook computer.  Updates were available and I had to “update and restart” the machine six times before there were no more updates to install.  There were 24+5+20+4+8+10 = 71 updates in all.  Allen, the computer sales associate at Best Buy, had alerted me to the fact that once I activated the machine there would be quite a few updates, so this was not unexpected.

 

2014/04/29 (W) Normality?

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When we got home on Monday, the bus and I had been away from the house for 128 days (130 days including the day we left and the day we returned) spanning portions of five months.  We moved into our new (to us) house on April 12th, 2013.  From May 1st of last year through the end of April 2014 we were in our motorcoach 214 of those 365 days ( +/- a couple of days).  Not bad for our first year as extended-time RVers and our first snowbird season.

Although we are still relative newbies at extended-time RVing this past year allowed us to develop a reasonable understanding of how to make it work for us.  But now we are home and that entails a different pace and rhythm to which we have had to quickly adjust.  First and foremost was letting folks know we were back and arranging visits with family and friends.  After that we have to deal with dentist appointments, veterinary appointments, doctor appointments, car appointments, computer upgrades, WordPress websites, photo editing software, ham radio club breakfasts and meetings, a communications tower, ham radio antennas, an OTA TV antenna, a cell phone repeater system, landscaping projects, fruit trees (pruning), a pole barn, conversion of the house to natural gas, and a list of bus projects (of course).  All by December 1st.  Right.

Gus the cat. Look closely; he has the longest whiskers I have ever seen on a cat.

Gus the cat. He has the longest whiskers I have ever seen on a cat.

Today was dental appointments followed by a detour to Ann Arbor to visit with our younger grand-daughter and her parents.  I’ve put some photos from that visit in a separate gallery post.  We stopped at the Whole Foods market and picked up something for lunch as well as ingredients Linda needed for making granola.  Madeline was napping when we arrived, so we got to visit with Brendan for a little while, but once she woke up she was ready to go.  It was 70 degrees F outside so we put her in the stroller and took her to the park that is the centerpiece of their neighborhood.  She spent a lot of time walking and running in the grass, up and down concrete ramps, but especially climbing the stairs for the slides and then sliding down.  Not long after we got back to the house Shawna got home from work and Madeline got a lot of mommy interaction.  By that point it was rush hour and we decided to stay for dinner.

No one was prepared to cook and rather than get carryout or delivery we decided to go to The Lunch Room, a relatively new vegan restaurant in Ann Arbor’s Kerrytown district.  Linda had a vegan mac & cheese and I had a mock Rueben made with Tempeh and a cup of vegan tomato bisque soup.  Everything was very good, including the vegan desserts: a grasshopper brownie for Linda and a no-flour chocolate cupcake with a Bourbon / Caramel / Pastry Cream frosting for me.  All of the food was very good and reasonably priced, which is not always the case in Ann Arbor.  By the time we got home and I took a phone call, there wasn’t much of the evening left.

So the new normal for us is not one or the other, it’s both/and; figuring out how to balance two very different ways of living and, in particular, how to flow back and forth between them as easily, smoothly, and quickly as possible.  But that may be just the sort of challenge our brains need to remain agile as we begin our forth score of years.

 

2014/04/25 (F) National Corvette Museum

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As forecast, we had thunderstorms overnight.  Light rain started before we went to bed, but the most intense weather was between 3 and 4 AM with lightning, thunder, and intermittent heavy downpours.  It is impossible to sleep through such weather even if we could completely darken the bedroom, which we cannot, as the sound of the storm is omnipresent and the wind rocks the motorcoach.  Once the storms subside, however, the sound of gentle rain on the roof makes for ideal sleeping conditions.  The good news was that none of our usual leaks appeared.

The National Corvette Museum main entrance, Bowling Green, KY.

The National Corvette Museum main entrance, Bowling Green, KY.

We had three things on our agenda for today—breakfast at Panera, the National Corvette Museum, and grocery shopping—all of which were in Bowling Green, Kentucky.  Since we were having breakfast out we did not make coffee at home and used the time normally devoted to breakfast to take showers.  Mundane, perhaps, but we keep the cats’ litter tray in the shower, so using it for its intended purpose requires at but more work than it might otherwise.

We left around 9 AM to dark, cloudy skies but with a forecast for steadily improving conditions across the region throughout the day.  We took I-65 to make time and took exit 22 onto US-231, the main commercial drag into Bowling Green.  We stopped at the visitor information center and got some local maps and information.  The Bowling Green Panera was just down the road and we were there by 10:30 AM.  Maybe it’s a southern thing, or perhaps a smaller town thing, but this was the third Panera we have been in recently where we had to wait in line while the person behind the counter carried on a personal conversation with the 1st person in line way beyond any reasonable definition of customer service.  But I was patient and eventually got our bagels and coffee.  Not that I had much of a choice; it was the only Panera for 100 miles or more in any direction from where we are camped.

Panera is a great place to sit and enjoy unlimited free refills of excellent coffee and use free Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi is not secure but they do require you to log in to their network to accept their terms and conditions of use.  Part of those T&Cs is a notice to please limit your use of the system to 30 minutes during the busy lunch period.  We have never seen that enforced until today when both of our iPads got cutoff and we received a message that we would not be allowed to reconnect until after 2 PM.  🙁   It was past noon by that point and we were ready to move on anyway.  The place was busy, but this was the first time we had ever had our use of Panera’s Wi-Fi system curtailed.

This Corvette was being raffled off at 4 PM. 1,000 tickets, $250 each.

This Corvette was being raffled off at 4 PM. 1,000 tickets, $250 each.

We headed over to the National Corvette Museum where a big “bash” was taking place.  The museum was open for general admission, but plant tours required reservations which were no longer available as of two weeks ago.  The main parking lots were filled with Corvettes and we were parked in a field a short distance away.  Because of the “bash” the lobby was packed with vendors and people, but once we paid our senior admission of $8 (each) and went into the display area it was quiet and not crowded.

The NCM was built, and is run by, a private foundation.  It is not owned, or operated, by General Motors but enjoys a very close working relationship with the company, including the fact that it is on the same street as the factory where the cars have been built since production was moved there in 1981.  Neither of us are “car people” but we found this to be an excellent museum and thoroughly enjoyed our time looking at the cars, reading about them, and trying to photograph them in the subdued museum lighting.

Because the “bash” was going on, the museum had opened the area where a massive sinkhole opened up on February 12, swallowing eight priceless Corvettes.  Since that event all of the cars had been recovered from the hole and put on display “as is.”  Most were badly damaged, some beyond recognition or any hope of repair.  Work was also underway to stabilize the sinkhole and ultimately rebuild that part of the museum and return it to service.  We had to sign liability waivers in order to enter this area of the museum and see the sinkhole.  After we were done in the museum we walked around part of the parking lot looking at the Corvettes parked there before walking back to our car.

We back-tracked towards downtown and stopped at a Kroger’s supermarket across the street from the Western Kentucky University medical complex.  This was the largest, and nicest, Kroger’s store we have ever been in.  We picked up the things we needed to take care of our food needs for the rest of the trip home.  Linda found a “power mix” of salad greens that included Mizuna, a slightly peppery and very tasty green that we had not heard of or seen before, even at a Whole Foods.

We took US-31W from Bowling Green through beautiful rolling farm lands back to Cave City.  After unloading the groceries I had a brief chat with one of the guys from the Airstream caravan who filled me in on a few more details about how the caravan operates.  The whole group had also been at the NCM today and got to tour the factory.

Linda made a pot of crushed lentil soup for dinner, from a recipe she has used before, and served it with a salad of the wonderful “power mix” greens and an “Asian” dressing.  On a walk after dinner we met a young couple, also out for an evening stroll, with their 2-year old, Dakota.  They said he enjoyed RVing, especially the rocks and the trains, and was a good traveler.  As long as he likes trains he has a bright future ahead as an RVer.

 

2014/04/23 (W) Lincoln Birthplace

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

Entrance sign to the ALBNHP in Hodgenville, Kentucky.

Entrance sign to the ALBNHP in Hodgenville, Kentucky.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

2014/04/22(T) Mockingbird

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Cave Country RV Campground has northern Mockingbirds.  Similar In size to Robins, they are grey and white, and masters of song.  We had at least one, maybe more, hanging around our rig early this morning and they started vocalizing at the first hint of daylight, long before sunrise which comes early on the eastern edge of the Central Time Zone.  And they sang, and sang, and sang, almost nonstop for more than three hours, and often in plain view of our coach windows where we could watch them.  There are other birds here as well, but the Mockingbirds were a real treat as I do not recall ever hearing them around either of our houses in Michigan even though their year-round range covers all of the lower 48 states.  The cats are also enjoying this spot, having a good view of all the birds on the ground and in nearby small trees.

We had some rain overnight and woke to completely overcast skies and a temperature of 62 degrees F with 100% humidity.  Perhaps a bit surprisingly it was very comfortable inside the rig.  We had a leisurely morning and Linda made her wonderful blueberry vegan pancakes served with real organic maple syrup.  We don’t have these very often and they are a real treat when we do.

We called the Livingston County Road Commission this morning to see when the seasonal load restrictions would be lifted and found out that they “hoped” to check conditions again tomorrow or Thursday.  Counties south of us (Wayne and Washtenaw) were planning to lift the restrictions late this week and the county to the west (Ingham) was planning to lift them next Monday.  In a “normal” season these restrictions would have been lifted on April 16th.  So as of this morning it appears that we will be delaying our return beyond this Thursday when we had planned to pull in to our driveway around mid-day.  Full- and extended-time RVers are fond of saying their plans are “written in Jell-O” and this is just another example of what that means.  (Linda checked the LCRC website later in the day and it had been updated to indicate that the restrictions would be lifted at 6 AM on Monday, April 28.)

Late morning I returned a phone call from Gaye Young.  She chairs the FMCA’s (national) Education Committee, to which I have recently been appointed.  It was our first conversation.  Among other things the committee will be studying RVillage and developing recommendations for FMCA’s involvement.

At noon we headed over to the Mammoth Cave National Park Visitor Center.  We were here seven or eight years ago, but it did not look familiar.  Once inside we learned why; the building had been constructed in 2010 on the site of the former visitor center.  The former adjacent administration building was now a fabulous museum connected to the new visitor center.

Admission to MCNP is free but entrance to the cave is not.  There are now over 400 miles of known/mapped passageways in Mammoth Cave making it the longest cave in the world by a big margin.  Unexplored parts exist for sure and the total extent of the cave is unknown.  We did a cave tour the last time we were here.  Today we were more interested in hiking and photography so we got a trail map and some recommendations from one of the rangers.

From the Visitor Center we took the foot bridge that goes over the ravine, with the trail down to the Historic Entrance to the cave, to the hotel/restaurant building.  We picked up the Heritage Trail and followed it past the hotel rooms and Sunset Terrace rooms to the “Old Guide’s Cemetery” and then to Sunset Point.  From Sunset Point we took a steep switchback trail down to the Echo River Spring Trail and followed it a short distance to its northern terminus where the River Styx emerges from the cave and flows to the Green River not far away.  From here we picked up the Green River Bluffs Trail which eventually returned us to the Visitor Center parking lot.  It was a good hike through the forest with wild flowers and occasional distant views.  I got a few nice photos along the way and will put them in a separate gallery post.

After our hike we had lunch at the hotel coffee shop and recalled having eaten there before.  We ordered a veggie wrap with potato chips and a black bean burger with fries.  Not a completely healthy meal, but still vegan.  We split everything and had a nice variety of food for our late lunch, all of which was very good.

MCNP is large at 53,000+ acres and has extensive “back country” with 70+ miles of trails.  Development, however, is mostly confined to a small area around the Visitor Center, which includes the modern campground, and two additional cave entrance sites. The campground has an entrance station, so we were not able to drive through and have a look.  We both recalled driving through the campground the last time we were here but could recall camping here.  And yet we must have, as we were traveling to Bowling Green, Kentucky in our Itasca Sunrise motorhome to attend the Life On Wheels program.  To paraphrase Wallace Stegner (1983), the National Parks really are “America’s Best Idea.”

We returned to our campground in Cave City and walked around a bit more, taking photos in the late afternoon light.  I spent a little time at the east end of the campground by the train tracks trying to get some photos of a passing train, but I could not get a good vantage point.  Later we had leftovers for dinner, turned on the TV for a while, responded to a volunteer questionnaire for the GLAMARAMA in June, responded to e-mails and RVillage posts, and worked on processing the photos from today.

 

2014/04/20 (N) A Nature Walk

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According to Trip Advisor the number one thing to do in Huntsville, Alabama is the Madison County Nature Trail.  The #2 attraction is the Botanical Gardens and the #3 attraction is the NASA Space Center.  We opted for the Nature Trail because we wanted to get outside and move around after a long day of driving yesterday.  It helped that entry was free.  Adult admission to the Botanical Gardens was $12 each and it was going to cost $20 each (minimum) to get into the Space Center.  For some reason it did not seem right to us that we should have to pay to get into a NASA museum.  Perhaps it is a privately funded and maintained museum?

The weather forecast for today was perfect: mostly sunny with thin, high clouds, light winds, a high temperature of 77, and zero chance of rain.  Without trees to shade our motorhome we decided to put all of the awnings out and open all of the roof vents to make sure the interior temperature remained comfortable for our cats.

We are camped just north of the city limit of Athens, Alabama so we drove through town to have a look.  The rail line to the west of the RV park runs through the center of town.  The town was incorporated in 1818, a year before Alabama became a state, and still has grand homes dating from the 1820’s.

Entrance to the Marion County Nature Trail on Green Mountain, Alabama.

Entrance to the Madison County Nature Trail on Green Mountain, Alabama.

From Athens we took US-72 east into Huntsville and picked up US-231 / Memorial Parkway SW going south.  From the Parkway we took Weatherly Cove Road SE to Bailey Cove Road SE to S Shawdee Road SE to Nature Trail Road SE, the road into the park.  Located southeast of Huntsville on a 72 acre site atop Green Mountain, the 1.5 mile Madison County Nature Trail circles a small lake, crossing a covered bridge and winding through a forest of hardwoods and conifers.  Along the trail we saw a Winged Elm tree.  But this was not just any Winged Elm; it was the Champion Winged Elm for all of Alabama, the oldest and largest tree of its species in the whole state.  It was by no means the largest or tallest tree we have ever seen, but it was beautiful, perhaps more so because we knew we were looking at something special.

We have been intentional about not packing every day full of activity and decided to return to our coach after our hike.  We reversed our route, stopping at a Kroger supermarket on US-72 for a few things.  We took a second pass through Athens, crisscrossing the historic Beaty District and driving past Athens University before returning to Northgate RV Travel Park.

We had hummus, bagel chips, and grapes for lunch.  I downloaded the photos I had taken along the nature trail and worked on processing them.  I finished editing my blog post for yesterday, uploaded it, and then took a nap.  I eventually got up and returned the awnings to their travel configuration while Linda prepared dinner.  As she often does, she adapted a recipe to the ingredients she had on hand and made a one pot dish of barley with mushrooms, onions, garlic, tomatoes, hot peppers, and kale.  It was very good.  We had fresh strawberries later for dessert.

 

2014/04/15 (T) A Taxing Day

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At 1:30 AM (Tuesday, April 15) my cell phone issued a severe weather alert tone.  The message from the Weather Channel app was an emergency notification that a flash flood warning had been issued for Freeport and advised us to seek higher ground but to not drive through water.  If we had not already been awake, we were now!  But then, that is the point of having your cell phone set up to alert you to dangerous and threatening conditions with a sound that announces an imminent nuclear attack.  As if that wasn’t enough, the leak at the passenger-side rear corner of our bedroom vent-fan reappeared.  I had applied a liberal coat of Dicor self-leveling lap sealant to the outside of that vent-fan back at Williston Crossings and it had not leaked during two subsequent heavy rain events, so I thought I had taken care of that problem.  Either I missed a spot or the water got in somewhere else.

Although Live Oak Landing is on the Choctawhatchee River it is on ground that is noticeably higher than the water level and the RV sites are not right at the bank.  I figured we were safe as we could see the east end of Choctawhatchee Bay from the front of our bus.  Ocean water levels rise and fall with the tides, but oceans don’t flood.  The interior roads and sites are paved, so they were not going to get washed out by the rain and we were not going to be mired in soft ground.

We had a lull in the rain between 3:00 and 5:30 AM and I used the time to work on blog posts covering the 12th through the 14th and keep an eye on the weather.  I prefer doing one post per day, and uploading it before I go to bed, but that is not always possible.  When I first started blogging I would often write the rough draft in bed on my iPad, e-mail it to myself, get up early the next morning, finish it, and upload it.  I still do that sometimes, but just as often I end up several days behind.  BTW:  The WiFi at Live Oak Landing is very good.  We have been able get connected and do what we needed to do, even when it was raining.  We also have an acceptable Verizon 4G/LTE signal here.

The rain resumed briefly at 5:30 AM but without the previous intensity and fanfare.  It started again at 6:50 AM.  I checked the radar on my iPad Wundermap app and it showed the cold front just a few miles to our west and another fetch of rain beginning to come on shore and positioned to train over us.  It was not severe, however, and the band ultimately drifted east of us before coming onshore.  The rain event in most of the panhandle was done by 8:30 AM.   The end of the rain event, however, was not the end of the weather warnings.  Flash floods occur during and shortly after heavy rain events, but rivers can rise above flood stage long after the rains have moved through as large volumes of water upstream try to make their way to the sea.

There was no sunrise today, just a gradual change from night to muted, grey light that continued through the morning.  By mid-morning the cold front had passed by us, the winds had shifted from southwesterly to due north, and the temperature had dropped. A low pressure center had moved directly over Atlanta, Georgia with the cold front trailing SSE into the Gulf and the rainy weather shifted to northeast Florida, downeast Georgia, and up the Atlantic coast.  A wider view of the continent showed the heaviest weather farther north.  The cold front stretched along the Appalachian Mountains, up through Quebec and then wrapped around through Labrador and into the Labrador Sea.  There were four additional low pressure centers located in northeast Pennsylvania, southwest of Montreal, over the middle of Labrador, and just off the coast in the Labrador Sea.  Behind the front was cold and snow; in front of it, rain.

Linda checked the weather back home. The 3+ inches of snow recorded overnight in Detroit, Michigan pushed the total for the season to a new record of over 94 inches.  The old record was established in 1880/81.  This has been a historic winter with records broken across much of North America.

By early afternoon the storms were gone and the day was struggling to become partly cloudy instead of all cloudy.  The temperature barely broke 60 and it was windy so it still felt like winter’s last hurrah.  Linda discovered last night that the dish soap we bought at Publix never made it into one of our grocery bags.  It happens.  We needed more toilet paper, so we headed back to Publix in the early afternoon and stopped at the customer service desk with receipt in hand.  Mary said it was “no problem, just pick up the soap and tell the cashier that Mary said it was OK.”  It was only a $0.69 item, but we appreciated that Publix took our word for it.

With our shopping taken care of we decided to drive west on US-98 about eight miles to Destin, Florida.  The closer we got to Destin the more developed the area became.  We saw a sign for a Panera at a premium outlet mall and decided to go there for lunch.  Destin is a very upscale, resorty kind of place.  We crawled through traffic, and some of the worst engineered traffic signals we have ever encountered, to get to the mall and the restaurant.

The parking lot was packed and so was the Panera.  Apparently the stormy weather had prevented the residents from getting their maximum daily dose of high-end shopping, and they were all out on Tuesday afternoon making up for lost time.  In spite of the crowd it did not take long to place our order and receive our food and it was the same good quality we have come to expect at Panera wherever we find one.  Unlike Watercolor, which seemed vibrant but relaxed when we drove through yesterday, Destin seemed crowed and almost frantic; not our kind of place.  The traffic lights were so stupidly set up I concluded that the traffic engineers must hate rich people and were using them to inconvenience them to the maximum extent possible.  Being neither wealthy nor tolerant of stupidity, we finished our lunch and got out of town.

Before returning to Live Oak Landing we drove past Topsail State Park, a former commercial RV park, and through the very upscale community of Santa Rosa Beach right on the Gulf of Mexico.   We then drove to Freeport just to check it out since Live Oak Landing has a Freeport mailing address.  It was a one intersection town without anything special to recommend it.  Been there, done that, no reason to go back.

Back at our coach we were both very tired, having had very little sleep last night, and took a nap.  Naps are a great thing.  I used to consider them a luxury, but I’m seriously considering making them a part of my daily routine.  When we finally woke up Linda made a green salad and re-heated the spicy quinoa and black bean dish from the other night.  A beautiful sunset suddenly developed and I grabbed my camera to try to get a view shots.  This kind of lighting situation really requires a tripod and the use of the high dynamic range (HDR) technique, but I did not have time for either of those, so I got what I could hand held.

Sunset at Live Oak Landing. (This photo has more image manipulation than normal.)

Sunset at Live Oak Landing. Our coach is lower right. (This photo has more image manipulation than normal because of the extremely high contrast lighting.)

Live Oak Landing has cable TV but we were able to pick up a surprising number of channels over the air (OTA).  We watched a couple of shows while I worked on blog posts.  The forecast low for early tomorrow morning was 39 degrees F, so we closed the ceiling vents and windows before we turned in for the night.

 

2014/04/11 (F) Primitive Camping

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[Photos related to this post and the one from Apr 9 will appear in a separate gallery post.]

Definition of “primitive camping”:  not being parked on a level concrete pad with 50A full hookups.  It’s all relative, of course, and that certainly is not our definition.  We are parked on gravel, which some RVers like better than concrete or asphalt, and we have 50A RV electrical service and fresh water at out “site.”  There is a dump station here and we are only minutes from more places to shop than we could visit in a lifetime, with more things to buy than we could possibly ever need or want.  So, no, this is not primitive camping.  The rigs are parked fairly close together, closer than we typically experience at RV rallies, but this is an RV repair facility after all, not a campground.  There is enough space for adjacent rigs to put out their slides and still be able to walk between them, and the “canyon (Venturi) effect” causes refreshing breezes to flow between the units.  To me, primitive means more (or less) than just not having hookups.  When I think of primitive camping, it conjures up an image of remoteness and wilderness.  In spite of having a background in mathematics, statistics, and research methodology, I guess I’m just a romantic at heart.

Joe finished cleaning and caulking our four windows this morning.  Kevin uncovered the openings and helped Joe reinstall the finished assemblies with assistance from Matt (on the outside) and me (on the inside).  When all of the windows were reinstalled Matt cleaned them inside and out.  Linda took photographs to document the work for the article I am writing for Bus Conversion Magazine.  We left the four repaired windows latched shut but were once again able to open the other four.  It will be nice to finally have windows open in the bedroom again.  Joe (who is a very funny guy and a delight to work with) had us sign off on the work, after which Linda went to office and paid our bill.  She also bought three cans of the Ardex Labs spray glass cleaner for $5 each.  We found it online; $15.99 / can plus shipping.  So much for Internet bargains.

We were pleasantly surprised to see that the cost for the repairs was only 57% of what we had been quoted.  We did not ask why, but we suspect it was because they were able to remove and reinstall the awning frames from the body with the thermopane glass sandwiches in them, and do so fairly quickly.  This allowed them to do most of the work inside.  Another factor may have been the size of the windows; the glass in our awning windows is only about 28″ wide by 17″ tall.  They told us when we made the appointment to expect 3 – 5 days for the work and it took 3.5 days.

The work on our coach was wrapped up by noon and we were free to go but being mid-day Friday we decided to stay.  We have made friends with Bill and Nancy from Ottawa, Ontario Canada, in the Newmar Essex motorhome next to us (Bill is the guy who helped us back in when we arrived.)  They decided yesterday to have the upper window in their door repaired and were going to have to stay until early next week for the work to be finished.  We decided to stick around and keep them company as we have enjoyed talking with them.  Besides, not knowing when the work would be done, we had not made a reservation yet for Sunday in the panhandle and will need to do that early on Saturday.

Our driver-side steer tire was reading about 5 PSI lower than the passenger-side tire when we left Williston on Monday afternoon, but both readings were above the minimum I like to run, so I chose not to deal with it there and then.  Of course, it was 87 degrees F when I checked them.  It’s been noticeably cooler here, especially first thing in the morning, and the driver-side steer tire looks like it could use a little extra air.  One of the nice things about filling the tires in Michigan in Mid-December and then driving to Florida for the winter was that even with a very slow leak the cold pressure goes up along with the morning low temperature.  But now that we are about to start our northward journey I would like to have all of the tire pressures reset enough above my normal cold pressure that they will still be OK when we get home.

I asked Joe if Suncoast had a shop compressor.  He said they did but he did not think it was set to a high enough pressure to inflate our front tires, which normally carry 110 – 115 PSI cold.  I was hoping we might find a mobile tire service like Carter Tire in Elkhart, Indiana but a Google search did not reveal anything promising.  I asked Joe if he could recommend someplace nearby, preferably heading north from here, and he suggested Tires Plus in Spring Hill.  His friend Dave works there and Joe thought it had plenty of room for us to get in and out and high enough air pressure to fill our front tires.  It is also about 10 miles north on our intended route on the northbound side of the road, and is open on Sunday at 9:00 AM.  I plan to drive up there tomorrow to verify the facts, but it sounds like exactly what we need.  If we are there at 9 AM and get our tire pressures taken care of we can make it to the western panhandle by late afternoon.

I had a long list of things I wanted to get done at the computer today, but it was another lovely day and we ended up sitting in shade between our rig and Bill/Nancy’s rig all afternoon enjoying the breeze, and shooting it.  We skipped lunch and were finally driven inside by hunger and the arrival of small, persistent, flying black bugs.

Because we skipped lunch we had an earlier dinner than usual.  Linda improvised a dish made with ingredients she had on hand: quinoa, black beans, tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, onions, and olive oil.  The hot peppers were really hot so she used them sparingly, but the dish still had a serious kick.  She has developed a good feel for how to combine these kinds of ingredients without a recipe.  It was delicious and I asked her to capture the recipe on our website/blog.

The coach had warmed up a bit during the day so we set two of our chairs out in front after dinner to enjoy the cooler evening air.  Bill and Nancy brought their chairs over and we enjoyed small glasses of the Barefoot Moscato while they enjoyed a couple of beers.  We talked until it got dark and chilly and decided to call it a night around 8:30 PM.  Sometime later we heard a very strange and loud sound, like an ATV, drive past the front of our coach.  I heard it returning from the back parking lot and managed to get a glimpse as it went by.  It was a pick-up truck with a fogger in the bed.  Presumably they were spraying something for insect control.  I have not seen anyone do that in quite some time.

 

2014/04/10 (R) Dunedin (FL)

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[Photos related to this post will appear in a separate gallery post.]

I confirmed yesterday that our awning windows would not be reinstalled until Friday, which left us free to go do something today.  We made sure the office had my cell phone number and then left around 9:20 AM for Dunedin, Florida about 30 miles south of where we are currently “camped” at Suncoast Designers.  Most of the drive was on US-19 with road construction and moderate-to-heavy traffic the whole way.  US-19 from Weeki Wachee south to St. Petersburg is just not an interesting or pleasant drive.

The destination was worth the drive, however, and we arrived at the eastern edge of Dunedin around 10:30 AM and parked near the Serendipity Café.  Over the next hour we walked through Dunedin’s historic downtown area to the marina on the Gulf of Mexico and back to the car.  Dunedin is the sister city to Stirling, Scotland and the historic downtown area reflects some Scottish heritage; at least the Scottish Heritage Center is there.

It was a gorgeous spring morning for a leisurely stroll with clear skies, bright sunshine, and temperatures around 70 degrees F.  This was the sort of day that shows a town like Dunedin in its best light.  Dunedin had a nice look and vibe to it–a bit upscale yet funky at the same time–with an assortment of unique restaurants (no chains), shops, and art galleries.  It was visually interesting without being pretentious.

We were back at the Serendipity Café a little before 11:30 AM.  We got a table for four and Donna and Michael arrived shortly thereafter.  They had suggested this restaurant because it was approximately midway between our respective locations and it had some vegan items on the menu.  Donna and Michael are members of our FMCA Freethinkers chapter and spent a few nights at Williston Crossings RV Resort in early January where we had a chance to finally meet and get acquainted.  They have been vegans for a very long time, so we also have that interest in common.  We were glad we could arrange another get-together with them before we left Florida.

We lingered over lunch for 90 minutes enjoying good food and good conversation.  I had a “Green Monster” smoothie made with spinach, pineapple, mango, and papaya.  Linda and I split the Asian kale salad which included carrots, red pepper, and roasted pumpkin seeds in a ginger/sesame/tamari dressing.  We then split the Penne Fresco; brown rice penne pasta with tomato, zucchini, kale, capers, white beans, olive oil, and dill.  The ingredients formed a light sauce that tasted like butter.  Served slightly warm, it was pleasant and delicious.  We split a muffin with dried cherries in it for dessert.  It’s always a treat to find a nice little restaurant with vegan choices and even better when we can share it with friends.  BTW: every dish at Serendipity Café is organic and gluten-free.

Donna and Michael had been on the Holistic Holiday At Sea cruise in early March so we compared experiences.  They were on a different/newer ship than the one we sailed on so we could not directly compare notes on that.  They found the educational aspects of the program very informative and decided to drastically reduce the amount of oil they use in their cooking.  They were less impressed with the dining, finding many of the dishes bland compared to how they cook, the serving sizes too small, and the meals generally lacking in an adequate quantity of fresh vegetables.  They ended up supplementing the special vegan dining with vegetables from the regular buffet.  I think that IF you want to go on a cruise, and IF you are a vegan, and IF you would like to take something home from your experience other than a few extra pounds, then the HH@S cruise uniquely meets those requirements.  If you are not really that interested in a cruise and/or gourmet vegan dining then VegFest in Pennsylvania provides the same or better educational experience for a lot less money.

We left the cafe around 1:00 PM and made the 3 mile drive north up the coast to Causeway Blvd, so named because it crosses two bridges on either end of a sand bar to form the causeway that connects Honeymoon Island to the mainland.  We had to wait briefly for the drawbridge to lower to get onto the island, which got its name when someone many, many years ago built 50 cottages there for honeymooners to use.  The first part of the island has some commercial development, but most of the island is Honeymoon Island State Park; the reason for our visit.

We used our annual Florida State Park pass to get in and headed to the nature center to rendezvous with Donna and Michael.  The nature center is elevated, probably as protection against hurricane storm surge, but as a result it provides an unobstructed view of the park and surrounding water from its wrap-around deck.  We got some good tips from the ranger about an active Bald Eagle nest and a Great Horned Owl at the north end of the Osprey Trail.  We also noted the cautions about Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnakes that inhabit the island in significant numbers.  The largest North American rattlesnake, it is one of the six venomous snakes found in Florida.

We drove to the trailhead, parked, and headed out, but not before changing lenses on my DSLR.  Any chance I had of capturing wildlife images would require my 100-300 mm zoom lens.  The trail out was level, dry, and firm but not hard, with adequate shade. The trees were mostly shorter palms with occasional taller pines, and a light breeze found its way in from the water.  The Osprey Trail was appropriately named.  We saw at least a dozen Osprey nests, most of them occupied with immature birds.  We eventually found the Great Horned Owl roosting high up in a pine tree.  The Bald Eagle nest was at the very end of the trail, by definition, as the park had closed off the entire tip of the island to keep human visitors and their pets from disturbing the birds.  The pair of adult eagles had successfully hatched two eggs and the immature birds were already fledged and out of the nest.  We only saw one adult bird soaring high up and far away, but the nest was impressive enough even without the eagles in it.

We took part of the Pelican Trail on the return hike thinking it might run along the water, but it was separated from the shore by high, thick vegetation.  The trail was sandy and lacking in shade, making for a slightly more difficult hike.  The air temperature was only 77 degrees F, but the sun was very hot, and we were all glad to get back to our cars.  We chatted a while longer in the parking lot, said our farewells, and went our separate ways.  Well, initially we went the same way; we were on an island after all, and there was only one way off.

Causeway Blvd becomes FL-586 which we followed east for about five miles to northbound McMullen Booth Road.  We followed McMullen Booth Road, which became E Lake Road, north for about 10 miles to Trinity Blvd.  Trinity Blvd cut ENE to the southern terminus of Little Road, which we followed north for about 12 miles back to New York Ave.  From there it west just a mile or so back west to Suncoast Designers.

We were surprisingly tired considering that it had been a relatively easy day.  Linda had some Tofurkey brand “fake bacon” made from tempeh so she made vegan BLTs for dinner along with a simple green salad.  We went for a walk after dinner and strolled around the Suncoast property with Bill and Nancy who own the Newmar Essex next to us.  A Country Coach Affinity 770 pulled in after we got back and the owner, Steve, came out and joined the conversation for a while.  As dusk turned to night the air temperature dropped.  We all started to feel the chill and retired to our rigs.

 

2014/04/06 (N) A Vegan Farewell

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Ali had this idea earlier in the week that a nice way to send us off would be with a pot luck dinner at their site.  The only catch was that all the dishes had to be vegan!  Our new friends have expressed some curiosity about the way we eat, and apologized for serving dishes at previous pot lucks that we could not eat, but I don’t think they anticipated actually having to eat any of it.  I think they were initially apprehensive about the vegan pot luck dinner but they were good sports about it and took it as something of a challenge.

At last count it looked like we might have 12 people there and half dozen dishes to choose from.  Linda decided to make the Sloppy Joe’s she served at our open house back in October.  The 60 people who showed up wiped them out, so we know they are something non-vegans will enjoy.  One of the reasons for her grocery run to Gainesville yesterday was to get the Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP) that serves as the hamburger substitute in this recipe.  She normally buys Bob’s Red Mill brand but Publix, in spite of having a large selection of BRM products, did not have the TVP.  That required an extra stop at the Earth Origins market where she found what she needed in the bulk food section.

Our major focus today, besides the pot luck dinner, was getting the coach (and us) ready for travel.  It had only been moved back and forth about 3 feet a few times since we pulled in to site 439 at WCRVR on January 1st, so the engine oil and tire pressures needed to be checked.  We also wanted to leave with all of our clothes clean, so my first chore of the day was doing the laundry while Linda made the Itty Bitty Carrot Cake Cookies.  The laundry takes an hour and 45 minutes to do.  The cookies took most of the morning.

The old adage “a place for everything and everything in its place” is more than a goal when living in an RV; it’s a necessity.  Still, over the last three months some things have come out of storage and stayed out because we used them on a regular basis.  It was now time to return them to their travel locations.  While Linda straightened up the interior of the coach I checked the engine oil and coolant and re-packed part of the front cargo bay.  When we pull out tomorrow everything has to be stowed and the dining table, counters, and end tables cleared as anything loose in the coach can slide and get broken or become a projectile in an accident.

With the housekeeping chores out of the way Linda turned her attention to preparing the Sloppy Joe’s.  The recipe is from the “Hell yes it’s vegan!” website and claims to be the original/authentic recipe with the exception of the TVP in place of the hamburger.  It uses ketchup instead of tomato sauce; sweet yet sharp from the vinegar.

John took the final reading on our electric meter this morning and turned it in to the office.  The Sloppy Joe’s were on their own for the next three hours so Linda walked over to pay our final electric bill and return the mailbox key.  Sometimes it’s the little things, like giving up a mailbox key, that most underscore the reality that your status somewhere has changed.

We have recently been unable to connect Linda’s computer to our network via WiFi, which meant she could not access the NAS where I store photographs and the files related to our website and blog.  We have had the same issue with our wireless network at home and got around it by using an Ethernet connection.  I was looking for a charging/data cable for my Palm Tungsten T-3 when I “discovered” that we had network cables on board.  We plugged her laptop into the Amped|Wireless router and voilà; there was the network and the NAS.  She was able to quickly back up files going back to mid-March.  I have been holding off deleting photographs from the Compact Flash cards until I had them on the NAS and on her computer.

By mid-afternoon the coach was in pretty good shape for travel and the Sloppy Joe’s were slowly cooking to perfection in Ali’s slow-cooker.  John escorted a trailer to the site on the other side of theirs, and Ali was already sitting outside, so we took that as an opportunity to give them a card and small gift; our way of saying “thank you” for being good neighbors, making our evenings at the fire pit memorable, and bringing us in contact with a larger circle of friends at the resort.

We had a chance to sit outside and read for a little while.  Around 3:30 PM Linda starting taking the various components of our contribution to the pot luck dinner next door to John and Ali’s site.  We took our four Zip Dee chairs and settled in with a couple of glasses of wine to chat for a few minutes before everyone else showed up around 4PM.  Jim (Sunny Fox) Rowley came down and had a drink with us but did not stay for dinner.  He and Janet had just returned from a week at Disney World and were very tired.  Everyone brought their own libations.  The mood was mellow, the conversation was good, and the food was spread out buffet style.

And what a spread we had!  Linda provided the Sloppy Joe’s and buns as well as the cookies.  Ali and John provided green salad, grilled bread with bruschetta topping, a citrus and strawberry fruit salad, and meatballs (for those who could not bear the thought of not having meat with their meal).  Jeff and Kathy brought a vinegar-style Cole slaw.  Charles and Sandy brought a couscous and black bean salad.  Doug and Paulette brought a potato and vegetable salad.  Jack and Silvia brought fresh cantaloupe with walnuts.  Every dish was outstanding and, being mostly cold dishes, perfect for a very warm spring afternoon.  The only other times we have had that kind of selection of vegan dishes was on our two Holistic Holiday At Sea cruises and at our open house last October.

As dusk set in the party broke up.  We lingered a while to chat with John and Ali, but the mosquitoes and other small insects were numerous and persistent, and we finally had to retreat to our respective RVs.

The very last task before we pull the coach out of the site tomorrow will be to drain the waste tanks, top off the fresh water tank, and stow the various hoses, electrical shoreline, and water softener.  Once we have the bus out of its parking place we will find an out-of-the-way spot, hook up the car, and be on our way.

 

2014/04/01 (T) No April Fool

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Today marked the one year anniversary of Linda’s retirement from Metropolitan Baking Company where she was the controller/treasurer and HR person for 10+ years and the outside CPA for many years before that.  She is still working for the bakery as a consultant, which was part of the reason for her return to Michigan in late February, but she has also been learning how to be retired over the course of the past twelve months.

Carriage Travel Club members. How to tow a 5th wheel RV in style!

Carriage Travel Club members. How to tow a 5th wheel RV in style!

This is now the 5th month in which I have been continuously away from “home” even though the number of days is less than 120 and will only be 126 to 129 days by the time we return to our house.  That may be the longest I have ever been away from a fixed/permanent residence in my life.  The only time that would come close to that was my first year in college when I lived in a dormitory for the school year.  Even then, it was two semesters with a break in-between, and the semesters were only about 14 weeks in duration as best I recall.

Carriage Travel Club banners. They have ~70 rigs at WCRVR all week for a rally.

Carriage Travel Club banners. They have ~70 rigs at WCRVR all week for a rally.

I was reading a post in Nick Russell’s Gypsy Journal blog the other day where he provided answers to FAQ’s he often gets from readers.  One of them had to do with the definitions of “full-timer” and “extended-timer.”  As Nick pointed out, there are no official definitions, but common sense (and usage) suggests that full-timers do not have a fixed dwelling to which they can return while extended-timers do, even if they are rarely or ever there.  How much time do you have to spend in your RV (land- or water-based) to be an extended-timer?  Again, there is no definition, but common sense (and usage) suggests that it is more than 3 – 6 weeks’ vacation usage and less than full time.

Since Linda retired one year ago today we have spent the following time traveling and living in our converted motorcoach:

  • 59 days – (early Jun to early Aug). MI, IN, IL, IA, SD, WY, MT, ND, MN, WI, MI.  Two rallies in Gillette, WY (FMCA and SKP) and a 2-week SKP HFH build in Sheridan, WY plus visits to national parks;
  • 6 days – (mid Aug). Clio, MI GLCC/CCO Back to the Bricks rally;
  • 10 days – (mid Sep) MI, IN, MI Twelve Mile, IN and GLAMARAMA13 rally in Goshen, IN;
  • 12 days – (mid Oct). MI, OH, KY, TN, VA, WV, OH, MI. SKP Photographers BOF photo workshop/rally in Townsend, TN.  GSMNP and camping with family in VA;
  • 103 days – (Dec 19 – Mar 31).  MI, OH, KY, TN, GA, FL.  Mostly in north central Florida; our first season as snowbirds.

That’s 190 days; more than half of the last twelve months.  We don’t have a numerical target, but our sense of how we want to blend RVing with living in a fixed house is to be in the RV for 6 –  8 months out of any given 12 month window but probably not gone for much longer than four months at a time.  It won’t always happen that way, of course, but on average that seems like a comfortable balance to us at this time based on our limited experience and current circumstances.

While going back and forth to the laundry building I stopped and chatted with Jeff for a while.  It appears they have developed a problem with the 12VDC house system in their motorhome.  They noticed it the previous evening as a diming of their lights and then realized the refrigerator did not want to work, even on propane.  I mentioned that we had just had a refrigerator problem and had stored our food in the refrigerator in the Activity Building kitchen while we got it sorted out.  I suggested how he might go about isolating the problem but did not jump in to try to solve it as there was another guy there also giving advice.  Too many cooks creates more problems than it solves.

We went to Satchel’s for an early dinner; our final opportunity to enjoy their excellent vegan pizza.  In addition to John and Ali we were joined by Kevin, Sharon, Ian, and Pat.  We had essentially the same pizza as before; hand-tossed thin crust with pesto base topped with mushrooms, onions, and sun-dried tomatoes.  Instead of the Daiya non-dairy cheese, however, we had the cashew cheese.  Instead of being shredded and evenly spread around the pizza it was in quarter-sized chunks like small mozzarella balls.  It resulted in a different pizza, but it was just as good as the other pizzas we have had there.  I also had the ginger pop.  They make it in house from real, fresh ginger.  The last time it was a bit weak, but today it was the best yet.  The ginger was so strong that burned slightly.  Exquisite.

Work continues at WCRVR on refurbishing the Pullman train cars.

Work continues at WCRVR on refurbishing the Pullman train cars.

The weather had been perfect all day so after we got back we sat around chatting with John and Ali and were joined by Jack and Silvia who were just finishing their evening walk.  We had a small glass of Trader Joe’s Pinot Grigio.  This is one of the wines Trader Joe’s sells for $2.99 a bottle. Our assessment was that you get about what you pay for, but in all fairness Pinot Grigio is a wine we normally drink with a meal, not as a before or after dinner drink.  We were also having grapes for “dessert” and their sweetness probably made the wine seem dry by comparison.  I do not care for dry wines, especially as a before or after dinner drink.  We will try the rest of the bottle with a meal and see if our first impression was off base.  We would love to find a $3 wine that we really like.