Tag Archives: Housekeeping chores

2014/03/10 (M) And All Of That

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Overnight from Saturday into Sunday we switched to Daylight Savings Time, so my personal biological clock is off by an hour but slowly resetting.  One of the nice things about retirement, however, is that it really doesn’t matter what time is on the clock when the sun rises and sets.  The sun rose this morning through clear skies and flooded our passenger side bedroom window with lovely warm light.  That’s how I knew it was time to get up.

There is comfort in my morning routine: feed the cats, refresh their water, and clean their litter tray.  (They insist that these things be taken care of before I do anything else.)  Grind the coffee beans and start the brewing process.  Some orange/grapefruit juice to wash down an allergy pill and a multi-vitamin, and then a decision about what to have for breakfast.  It is usually granola, but not always.  Turn on the Verizon MiFi, start the computer, get connected and check my e-mail accounts.  No one from the African sub-continent wants to give me millions of dollars for helping them launder billions in stolen U.S. Foreign aid, and we have not won a free cruise, so it looks like I will have a fairly normal day and get to do whatever it was I planned to do, if I feel like it.

I had not yet written blog posts for Saturday and Sunday, so I did that first.  I find the Notepad app on my iPad2 particularly convenient for this purpose.  I can sit anywhere and work, including outside or away from the bus.  This morning our female cat, Juniper, was feeling a bit needy (she is more bonded to Linda than me and really misses her) so I sat on the couch writing blog posts with her on my lap.  A pair of cardinals was busy in the trees around our rig gathering pieces of Spanish moss for what I could only presume was the building of a nest somewhere nearby.  Juniper has a very strong hunting instinct, so this really got her attention, and provided here with kitty entertainment for quite some time.

A group had planned to go to Satchel’s in Gainesville for pizza around 3 PM.  It turned out that they were not open on Mondays, so we went to the Micanopy Blue Highway instead.  We went early because some of the group had to be back before 6 PM to work or play bingo.  I knew it would be an early dinner and just had a piece of fruit for lunch.  The first time Linda and I went to the Blue Highway we had them veganize one of their standard roasted vegetable pizzas.  It was OK.  I have been back twice while Linda has been away and had salad both times.  Most pizzas are not very good without the cheese.

Linda called while we were driving to the restaurant to update me on the leak.  Our son (Brendan) had come over to lend a hand.  When he inspected the area under the dishwasher he found the fresh water supply line dripping at the connector and shut off the water to the dishwasher.  Assuming that was the only source of the leak it was actually relatively good news. An ice dam on roof would have meant water running down the inside of the wall.  Linda is flying back to Florida late Thursday, so she will have a few days to make sure this was the only problem.  The fact that I will have to repair this leak when we get home just added insult to injury.  I installed the new dishwasher last year and had trouble getting that very connection to not leak.  Instead of Teflon thread tape I will be using PTFE pipe thread compound next time.

John and Ali decided to have another campfire at their site this evening.  I made some popcorn to take over, the first time I’ve made any since Linda flew back to Michigan.  Meg joined us for a while.  It was another quiet evening at the RV resort.  As the sun set the air temperature dropped back into the low 60’s, just cool enough to make the fire an enjoyable necessity without feeling chilled.

 

2014/03/09 (N) Delayed

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Even though the weather forecast for today was for near perfect conditions with sun, no rain, and a high temperature in the upper 70’s—and as much as I would have liked to have John and Marian return and help me with bus projects—I decided not to work on the bus.  Linda was scheduled to fly back to Florida Monday afternoon and I needed to devote some time and energy to housekeeping chores.  I have been keeping up with doing the dishes, laundry, and the litter tray, but the bus needed to be vacuumed, and the floors, counters, shower, mirrors, and windows cleaned.  I would probably not make a good bachelor, or at least not a really tidy one.

Mid-morning I got a call from Linda letting me know that we had water damaged suspended ceiling tiles in the northwest corner of the basement near the electrical panel.  She sent pictures with her smartphone and then we talked and tried to problem solve as best we could.  She had not yet checked in for her afternoon flight the next day and we decided she should re-book for later in the week to give her time to figure out what was happening and try to deal with it.

She called our good friend, John Rauch, because that’s what we do when we have house issues.  John thought it was most likely an ice dam on the roof causing water to run down the inside of the wall, or at least behind the siding.  Linda was able to find a roof rake and calcium chloride pellets at a small, local hardware store.  (The big box stores were out and probably busy stocking their shelves with garden supplies even though we are still experiencing single-digit temperatures and have feet of snow on the ground with more likely to fall before winter finally yields to spring in Michigan.)  The rake allowed her to safely remove snow from the first few feet of the bottom edge of the roof.  The pellets are like hockey pucks and are designed to be tossed onto the roof ice and cause it to melt.

Later in the day Linda joined the rest of our immediate family at our daughter’s house for a slightly belated birthday celebration for our son-in-law, Chris.  I finished some, but not all, of my housekeeping chores as I want to do some them just before Linda returns so the bus is as clean as possible.  I worked on the Cool Cruiser article until early evening when John and Ali invited me next door for a small campfire.  Jim and Janet came down for a while and we all had a nice chat.

 

2013_07_27 (Sat) Where We Go From Here

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We have had an intense but wonderful week in northwest Wyoming and the Green Creek Inn and RV Park has been just the right spot for us to base camp.  The RV park is away from the hustle and bustle of Cody, yet close enough to be convenient for shopping and entertainment, and is close enough to Yellowstone N. P. and Grand Teton N. P. to make them accessible as day trips.  And although it’s a small RV park with only nine sites, we had excellent full hookups, laundry facilities, a WiFi connection to the Internet, and free popcorn.  Our 50 Amp site allowed us to run all three house air-conditioners all day while we were away to keep our cats safe and comfortable.  We needed to do this because of daytime highs in the mid-80’s with bright sunshine and constant wind that prevented us from using our awnings to shade the passenger side of the coach.

Although $45 per night is more than we generally pay to stay in an RV park, it was a fair price given the location and facilities.  The WiFi/Internet bandwidth was limited, but we were glad to have what we had as there was no useable Verizon 4G/LTE signal here, and even 3G EVDO was marginal for making phone calls.  The WiFi connection was generally very strong thanks in part to or WiFi Ranger Mobile Titanium, which has been working very well for us since we bought it at the FMCA rally in Gillette, WY last month.  Interestingly, the only OTA television signal we could pick up was Wyoming PBS from the general direction of Cody.  (Smile)

This was a quieter day for us, but by no means an idle one, as we needed to prepare for our departure tomorrow morning.  We noticed this morning that it was overcast, the first time since we arrived here a week ago.  We did have clouds today, and a few drops of rain, but Jeff informed us that the haze we were seeing was from the various forest fires burning in the west.

Linda drove to Cody in the morning to do our shopping.  The main attraction was the local Farmers Market, located, conveniently enough, in the parking lot of the Whole Foods Trading Company.  She came back with quite a few bags of stuff!

While she was gone I drained the waste tanks, stowed the hose, and added our Pine Sol / water / Calgon solution to the tanks.  I also drained the little bit of fresh water that was still in the tank, flushed it with a bit more, and then refilled it.  I left the fresh water shore line connected so we could use if until we depart, conserving our onboard water for use on down the road.  I also worked on getting our blog postings up-to-date.

When Linda got back she did the laundry.  At our house in Michigan this is usually my chore, but for some reason she seems to take care of it on the road.  Although we are trying to learn not to over-plan, we are not full-timers, and we have a house and family to which we have to return from time-to-time.  We knew the route we wanted to take back to S. E. Michigan, but the timing and overnight waypoints were still undecided.  We want to see the Theodore Roosevelt N. P. in western North Dakota, but the campgrounds there do not have any hookups and do not appear to be big rig friendly.  Medora, ND is the closest town, but it is 410 miles driving distance from Wapiti.  That is more than we care to do in one day, especially given our planned stop at Interstate Power Systems in Billings, MT to visit with Cherie and Chris of Technomadia.  (http://www.technomadia.com).

Using the online Good Sam campground finder we located the Meadows RV Park in Miles City, MT, 280 miles away, and made a reservation for tomorrow night.  That should give us a 5.5 -6.0 hour drive, leaving plenty of time to stop and visit in Billings.

I continued to work on our blog while Linda paid our bills and continued to research overnight stops.  We decided we would try to stay two nights at an RV park in Medora if we could find an opening.  And we did!  We made a reservation at the Red Trail RV Park just off I-94.  It is walking distance to downtown Medora and convenient to the Theodore Roosevelt N. P., which we will now have a day-and-a-half to explore.

Linda took time out to make wheat berry risotto with mushroom /garlic/onion /asparagus.  She used some of the Argentinean Malbec wine we had on board, and served the rest with the meal.  This was a fragrant, earthy dish with great “chew” that somehow fit the wildness of this past week.  When she has the time to cook we eat very well indeed.

While the risotto was cooking we pulled the tray on the passenger side of the bus that houses the chassis battery disconnect switches and the Vanner equalizers (we have two as it turns out).  We located the circuit breakers, and pushed them in to (possibly) reset them.  (This refers back to the BAL light that came on while traveling from Sheridan to Wapiti on the 21st of this month.)

Beyond Medora we hope to stay at a winery in Buffalo, ND about 30 miles west of Fargo.  It was personally recommended to us by Harvest Host founders Don and Kim Greene.  If they can accommodate us on the 31st, it will be our first use of our Harvest Hosts membership.

Along the same lines, we hope to stay the next night at the Forest Edge Winery in Laporte, Minnesota.  Forest Edge is owned/operated by members of the FMCA Freethinkers Associate Chapter.  Being a kind of “virtual” chapter in FMCA’s International Area (INTO) our members are spread out all over the United States, Canada, and Mexico.  Rallies are difficult to organize and most of our interactions are by e-mail.  We even hold our annul business meeting electronically.  Thus any opportunity to meet in person is a treat.  The fact that Forest Edge is also a Harvest Host business makes it easier and that much more special.

From Laporte we plan to head to Hibbing, MN to visit the Greyhound Bus Museum.  Beyond that, we will make our way across Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to St. Ignace.  From there we cross the Straits of Mackinaw (Mackinac) on the Mackinaw Bridge and head straight south on I-75 where we vector off on US-23 southbound to M-59, and home.  Depending on when we get there we will have been gone almost exactly two months.

 

2013_07_14 (Sun) Housekeeping Chores

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We have had an exciting but fairly intense week, including our ‘grand auto tour’ of the northern Wyoming Bighorn Mountains, so we had decided in advance that today would be a low key, stay at home day for us.  Besides, there are some things that living in an RV does not change.  At the top of the list (for us at least) are grocery shopping, doing laundry, and paying bills.  (Some RVers avoid grocery shopping by eating all of their meals out.  They usually have the largest, fanciest kitchens.)  Tank dumping is not to be overlooked, of course, and we tend to throw that into the mix on a chore day if we are stationary for a while, such as we are at the moment.  Taking care of our website/blog has become a daily task, but does not rise to the level of a chore as it is in no way necessary.

We had two rigs and three members of our team leave this morning.  Steve, our intrepid co-leader, told the team on day 1 that he had a long-standing family obligation the second week of the build and would be leaving us.  Bruce and Pam also had to leave unexpectedly as they got a call on Friday that their daughter, who has Multiple Sclerosis, had taken a turn for the worse.  Every member of a team quickly becomes a unique piece of a puzzle, and the premature departure of these three leaves a hole that is felt as a genuine loss.  Steve had made us feel welcome in a group where we might not have automatically fit in and worked with both of us at the job site.  I had the pleasure of working closely with Bruce on some trickier aspects of the build and appreciated his knowledge, skill, and patience.  We had a chance to say our “so long for now”s to Steve last night, but we did not get a chance to say goodbye to Bruce and Pam.

Our driver-side neighbors, Marvin, Leo, and their families, pulled out mid-morning.  They had helped us early last week deal with our awnings when the wind suddenly came up very strong.  By early afternoon there were quite a few vacant sites.  We went to get groceries, but took a few minutes to first find and drive through Kendrick Park.  On our way to Albertson’s we passed the Safeway so we stopped there instead.  The store was nice enough but smaller, and their selection was not as extensive as Albertson’s, which has become our preferred grocery store out here.

In the course of the afternoon new campers arrived including a RoadTrek Class B that pulled in to the site on our driver’s side.  They had just come from Cody via US-14 and were heading on to Gillette and then Sundance and Devil’s Tower, the opposite of what we have done the last four weeks.

We had our 4:30 PM SKP social, although it started a little later and was a bit smaller, with just me, Linda, Jack, Shirley, Kent, and Jan.  Kathy, Mara, and Leota returned from shopping and other adventures, and Kathy and Mara joined the social until we all went home to have dinner.  We compared notes about our program selling efforts the previous evening at the Sheridan Wyo Rodeo.  Linda and I sold $201 dollars but Kathy and Mara sold $500, so they covered the Rodeo’s donation to the local HFH affiliate all by themselves.  Good job.

After dinner we turned the TV on for the first time since we arrived in Sheridan a week ago as Linda wanted to watch Masterpiece Theater.  We scanned for OTA signals with the antenna pointed in three different directions and finally found the local Wyoming PBS station, and most of the others, on the 3rd try.  I watched out of the corner of my eye while I worked on uploading blog posts.