Tag Archives: diesel fuel biocide

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.

 

2014/01/01 (W) Happy New Year!

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A few rigs left yesterday but most of the rally attendees stayed around for the New Year’s Eve dinner and party.  A lot of us were up later than normal, so the first day of 2014 had a slow, quiet start.  Even so, there were a couple of buses that started up and pulled out before we got out of bed.  The weather was partly cloudy with pleasant temperatures, not the way we are used to starting a new year.  We have been tracking the weather back home and the key words are snow, ice, cold.

Although the rally was officially over we knew from conversations that some of them would be staying at the Turner Agri Civic Center for a few more days.  Some were headed home to places like the Carolina’s or Tennessee, but many others were headed somewhere in Florida.  Jack and Paula live less than 14 miles from the rally site and were headed there along with some of their friends.  Mike and Maryann were headed south about an hour to the Peace River Campground.  Bill, Karen, Mike, and Kathy were headed to Orange City up towards Orlando.  Others, like us, were headed north up the west coast.

We targeted 10 AM as our departure time and finished preparing the coach for travel.  By 9:30 AM we had everything ready to go except for the electrical shoreline, which I like to leave plugged in until the last minute.  We took one last stroll to find Bill and Brenda and thank them for a wonderful rally and say “happy new year” and “until we meet again” to anyone we encountered.  We chatted briefly with Dave Rush who also took a lot of photographs and shot video with his iPad.  You can find his images at http://tikvahmarketing.com .  Look for the Arcadia Rally link on the home page.

There was finally nothing left to do except leave.  We disconnected and stowed the electrical shoreline and did a final walk around.  We checked the lights and found that the towing lights on the car were not working.  I had noticed when we arrived that the connections on the umbilical cable were a bit corroded so I cleaned those and voila, we had towing lights.  We lit up the engine, pulled across the field that separated our site from the entrance road, and were on our way.

We made the 40 miles on FL-70 W to I-75 N in dry conditions, but not long after turning north on I-75 we encountered rain, which stayed with us for the rest of the trip.  We made a brief stop at the Pilot Truck Stop at exit 341 on I-75 to top off the tank and add our diesel fuel additive and biocide.  We wanted to make sure we arrived a Williston Crossings RV Resort with a nearly full fuel tank to keep moisture condensation to a minimum and the biocide to make sure nothing grows in the fuel while we are sitting for three months.

It was raining lightly when we got to Williston Crossings RV Resort so I put on my rain coat and unhooked the car while Linda got us registered.  We had scoped out our site (#439) when we were here a week ago, so I knew it was big enough for us and that backing into it should not be a problem.  We ended up coming at that task from a slightly different direction, but with the help of two resort volunteers and one of our new neighbors I got it backed in and lined up fairly easily.

The site was so level that I did not have to adjust the level low system, which I switched out of ride height position before shutting down the engine as it seems to help hold the air in the suspension.  I hooked up the shoreline (in the rain), shut off the air to everything that didn’t need it, and went inside to help Linda set up the coach for living.  We have more privacy on this site than we normally do in an RV park/campground, and we are parked facing due north (the ideal direction) so we decided to put our front shades all the way up and remove the upper side window covers, which we have never had off until now.  The four windshields form a picture window that is 8.5 ft wide and 6 ft high.  Having those uncovered opens up the sense of interior space, lets in lots of light, and affords a panoramic view as long as we are not parked where they get direct sunlight, which tends to heat up the interior.

We will be here for three months during which time we do not plan to move the coach.  This winter trip to Florida will be the longest period of time we have spent in this or any RV, and the three months at Williston Crossings RV Resort will be the longest we have lived in it while parked at the same spot.  That means we will finally get to use some things, like our printer, that we brought along for the first time but have not yet retrieved from their storage places and set up.  Likewise, it means we can store some things that normally sit out as we won’t need them again until April 1st.

We did not eat breakfast this morning, we never do on travel days, so once we were set up Linda made a pot of coffee.  She had some berries to use up, so she fixed breakfast for dinner; Pancakes Pirello (vegan) with blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries and real maple syrup, and vegan sausage patties.

Most of Florida is having a prolonged rain event, and the rain at the resort continued all evening and overnight.  I am happy to report that as of this writing none of our water leaks have re-appeared, a combination of Michele Henry’s good work at Phoenix Paint (Edwardsburg, MI) and perhaps warmer temperatures causing things to swell slightly and seal.  Whatever the reason, it was nice to be sitting inside on a rainy day with no drips.