Tag Archives: OTA TV

2016/03/21-23 (M-W) Webster Cape-Canaveral Jetty-Park Recovery

2016/03/21 (M) Webster to Cape Canaveral

I was up sometime before 8 AM after a less than completely restful night’s sleep. Yesterday was our last full day at Florida Grande Motor Coach Resort (FGMCR) in Webster, Florida and today was departure day. I am always a bit anxious when the time comes to move the bus after sitting for a while, and even though we have only been here for two weeks it has been a lovely, comfortable place to base camp. Although we only had about 100 miles to travel today, I was more anxious than usual because of a combination of factors.

At the top of the list was the tag axle brake issue. While I was hopeful that Joe had taken care of it, at least for now, we would not know for sure until we moved the bus. Another big factor was that Linda has been very ill for the last few days and was still not well this morning. That meant I would have to do more of the work of preparing the bus for travel. I didn’t mind, of course, I just did not want to overlook something that was normally part of her portion of the departure routine. The third, forth, and fifth factors were: 3) using our new SunPass transponder for the first time; 4) taking the bus on the Florida Turnpike and Toll Road system for the first time, and; 5) traveling a route that came into the Orlando area from the northwest and swung around the southern edge before heading straight east towards the Atlantic ocean. The sixth and last factor was our destination, which was not a motorcoach resort with wide, straight roads and big sites, but rather a county park with narrow, twisty roads, closer sites, and lots of trees. Charming, but not necessarily “big rig” friendly. I knew, because I had visited Pat and Vickie Lintner here two years ago.

We had a reservation at Jetty Park Campground on Cape Canaveral where our GLCC friends, Pat and Vickie Lintner, have been since mid-February. We had reservations starting today and running through the 28th, with departure on the 29th unless we decide to extend our stay and there was a site available. Check-in time was 2 PM and our mapping app indicated 104 miles and a little over two hours for our preferred route. Based on that we wanted to pull out of FGMCR sometime between 11 AM and noon. That gave us most of the morning to prepare the bus for travel, and that was comfortable even with Linda being ill and not able to do as much as usual.

I did not have coffee this morning—I never do on travel days—and we just had a couple of pieces of toast early for breakfast. In spite of not feeling well Linda got most of the inside of the bus ready to travel and even swept the floor. I packed up our computers and iPads and then prepared the outside stuff.

The biggest, most time consuming job, and my least favorite, is checking and adjusting tire pressures. I had plugged in the TireTrakker TPMS repeater last night and I turned on the receiver/monitor this morning after letting it recharge overnight. It eventually acquired temperatures and pressures from all 13 tires. The temperatures were all in the 60’s so I knew the pressure readings were current rather than left over from our previous trip. The sensors are not accurate enough, however (in my opinion), so I checked all of the tires with my tire gauge except the mini-spare in the car. The passenger side steer tire on the bus needed an extra 2 PSI, but all four tires on the car were low and needed to be increased. So did the car spare, but I was not about to empty out the back of the car to get to it. I should have taken care of this sometime during the last two weeks as the pressure was low enough to keep triggering an alarm on the monitor, and was not at the correct pressure for use should we need it.

By 10:30 AM we were ready to go except for disconnecting the shorepower and hooking up the car. I was going to reposition the coach so we could hookup the car at the site and then exit to the left but a landscaping crew showed up, parked along the other side of the road to our left, and unhooked their trailer. I was not going to ask them to move, and I doubt that they would have even if I did. It was easier to just exit to the right anyway and hook up the car at the staging area by the clubhouse where we unhooked when we came in, so that’s what we decided to do.

At 11:20 AM I disconnected the shorepower and stowed the cord. Chassis batteries ON; engine accessory air supply ON; inverter operating; main engine start; no problem. I let the suspension and brakes air up on low idle as Joe had suggested and then pulled up the tag axle. Linda moved the car to the empty pad across the street to the right and watched as I pulled out. Once I cleared the turn I put the tag axle back down and Linda followed me counterclockwise around the front “pond” to the staging area where I shut off the engine and she pulled the car up behind the bus. Many (most) RV parks have “no engine idle” rules. There isn’t one posted here, and the staging area is far enough from the clubhouse and the closest sites that our engine would not have bothered anyone, but since we would be hooking up the car directly behind the engine we did not want to listen to it while working.

No less than three people stopped to chat with us while we were hooking up the car for towing. That actually violates good RVing manners (unwritten rules) but they were just curious, being friendly, and/or wishing us safe travels. The problem is that you are engaged in a critical process and anything that distracts you can result in overlooking something with potentially serious, even disastrous, consequences. We are experienced enough at this point, however, to double check everything before we drive away, especially if we have been interrupted. This time we backed the car up until the tow bar arms locked in place and then secured the air line and electrical cables so they would not pull loose. Linda remained outside to do the light check while I started the bus engine and operated the controls. Everything checked out and once Linda was back on board we were ready to go. She had entered our destination into the GPS unit before we pulled out of our site.

Pat & Vickie Lintner’s site at the Jetty Park Campground, Cape Canaveral, FL.

As I pulled around to the exit gate the gatehouse attendants saw or heard us and opened it. We got big smiles, waves, and “safe travels” from them as we left. It was 11:50 AM.

The GPS routed us the same way we had determined using our iPad mapping apps. We turned left out of the resort onto CR-478 headed east. The road curved around to the north about four miles later and ran up to the town of Center Hill where we picked up CR-48 eastbound. A half mile later the road turned northeast and a couple miles up the road the GPS told us to turn onto CR-704 (FL-?). I had just started the turn when I saw the weight restriction sign; nothing over 28,000 pounds GVWR permitted! What the?!!!

I stopped soon enough that I was able to turn back onto CR-48 without having to back up, after traffic cleared, so we caught a break there but were both a bit unnerved by the failure of our Rand-McNally TripMaker RVND 7710 GPS to route us correctly. It then occurred to me that the very small update I Installed last night might have reset the vehicle configuration as I vaguely recalled this happening once before. Why R-M would design their GPS unit so it loses configuration data as a result of an update is beyond me, but there are several things about this unit that defy common sense.

Linda used her cell phone to try to figure out where we were now headed and determined that we could still get to where we needed to be. She then opened the preferences screen on the GPS unit and found the configuration screens. Sure enough, it thought we only weighed 20,000 pounds (we are closer to 42,000) and were only 12’6″ tall (we are probably 13’1″). I really fault R-M for this as it creates a potentially dangerous situation. Anytime the settings are changed, certainly if they are reset as part of an update, the unit should display a message to that effect and not allow the unit to be used until it is acknowledged. Better yet, I don’t understand why the configuration should be changed as part of the update process.

At some point we turned left onto US-33, which seemed wrong, but Linda verified it was correct. We ended going south on US-27 all the way back to Clermont and then getting on the Florida Turnpike (FL-91) headed south towards Miami. We made it through the first Toll Plaza with an “OK to Proceed” sign, so we knew that the new transponder was working, which was a big relief. The lane guidance feature of the GPS unit worked well and we did not have any difficulty negotiating the interchanges. Linda kept an eye on the tire sensors throughout the trip. All of the tires indicated temperatures in the 60’s except the driver side tag, which was 90 to 102. It was definitely elevated, but not enough to be an immediate problem. This was not unexpected as I knew that the new pads were dragging more than on the passenger side. Interestingly, the pressure in that tire had not risen disproportionately higher than any of the other tires, indicating to me that it was probably the valve stem that was warmer due to its direct contact with the wheel, rather than the rubber of the tire, which was getting plenty of cool air blowing around it.

We arrived at Jetty Park at 2:15 PM, only 10 minutes later than our original ETA before we had to detour around the weight-restricted road. Our name was not on the list (sigh) at the entrance gate but we were given the gate code and directed to the campground. I found a place to pull up and shut off the engine while I went in to register us, as Linda had effectively lost her voice. We were not on the list (double sigh) there either (same list, I suspect) but they found us in the computer. I had confirmation e-mails, if needed, but had not brought them in with me. We unhooked the car and parked it at the office. We drove the bus around through the narrow, curvy gravel roads but I was able to make all the turns, even with cars parked near the edges, so the road system here is laid out better than it appears.

Jetty Park is a county-owned and operated public park and beach with a campground that has been turned over to the Cape Canaveral Port Authority to manage. It is in a premium location in Cape Canaveral, Florida just north of Cocoa Beach and just south of the Kennedy Spaceflight Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It is on the south side of the shipping channel that connects Port Canaveral to the Atlantic Ocean. Cargo ships use this port/channel, but the main attractions are the Disney and other cruise ships and the U.S. Navy Trident submarines. In addition to all of its other charms, it is one of the best places from which to watch rocket launches, and there is one scheduled for tomorrow night! I think this is the first time we have stayed in a county park with the motorcoach. It is more like a state park than the private RV parks and resorts where we usually stay. It’s probably closest in appearance and feeling to a nice KOA.

Pat and Vickie saw us drive by and walked down to watch while Linda helped me back into site #343, a full hookup, 50 Amp site with nice trees around it. I could not back far enough into the site to get the front tires onto the concrete pad due to low branches at the rear of the site. As a result we were slightly low in front. That would not normally be a problem but the Level Low system would not adjust the front end. I have a spare air leveling solenoid and might have to work on this while we are here. Ugh. I took a picture on my phone and e-mailed it to our son and daughter.

Site #343, our first (of many) sites at JPCG (on right, beyond the trailer. Cape Canaveral, FL.]

I did not plug in the shorepower cord as I wanted to let the house batteries discharge to 24 VDC (50% SOC). Linda and Vickie searched online for medical clinics. Linda selected one about three miles away in Cocoa Beach and I drove her there. It took about two hours from the time we arrived until she had her prescriptions. We went to the CVS Pharmacy across the street to have them filled. They would not be ready for 2 to 2.5 hours so we went back to the campground so Linda could rest as comfortably as possible.

Back at our rig I got our Wi-Fi Ranger connected to the park’s public Wi-Fi system and got our iPads and my computer online. I did not set up Linda’s computer as it will likely be a few days before she is in the humor to use it. I checked e-mail and the throughput appeared to be usable, if somewhat slow. I suspect it will be better between midnight and 8 AM, but that is not when I tend to be up. If we have updates, however, or I need to upload or download are files to/from BCM, I might adjust my schedule. The RV life requires agility.

I left at 6:30 PM and drove back to Cocoa Beach to pick up Linda’s prescription medications. I stopped at a Publix supermarket first and bought various groceries before going to the CVS Pharmacy. On the way back I stopped at a Dunkin Donuts for a coffee for me and finally got back to our coach at 7:45 PM. Linda helped get the groceries inside and then took her first dose of meds.

I turned the front TV antenna towards Orlando and rescanned for channels. The TV found at least 60, including CBS and two different PBS affiliates. I pointed the rear antenna in the same direction and rescanned the rear/bedroom TV but the scan would not compete successfully. I tried it a couple of times with the same result each time. Arrrgh. When in doubt, do a power-off power-on reset, right? I unplugged the power from the antenna controller and the TV set, waited long enough for any power capacitors to bleed down, and plugged them back in. I pointed the antenna again and then scanned for channels. Eureka, this time they were all there! I should have tried that while we were at FGMCR. Doh!

We watched our usual Monday night TV shows on CBS plus a few minutes of news and weather and then went to bed. Given how Linda felt and was still coughing I figured neither of us was going to get a good night’s sleep, but we were both tired and there wasn’t anything else to do except try. An overnight low of about 50 degrees F was expected so I had closed the roof vents and left the windows open just a crack. We were still operating off the house batteries and inverter so I did not turn on the usual night lights.

2016/03/22 (T) Jetty Park Atlas

Linda had a really bad night last night, maybe the worst yet since she took ill, with persistent extended episodes of painful coughing. She was obviously uncomfortable, and no doubt also frustrated, as she was finally able to start taking medication last night at 8 PM. She was already wrung out and very tired, and I was a bit spent myself after the day we had yesterday, but neither of us got a good night’s sleep. Today will need to be an easy day, of necessity, and we will need to rest so we can be up and alert late this evening for the rocket launch. An Atlas V (5) launch is scheduled from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 11:05 PM this evening. It is a resupply mission for the International Space Station.

I got out of bed at 7:15 AM and fed the cats. I was not well-rested, and would like to have gotten back under the nice warm covers, but I was also uncomfortable and had spent as much time supine as I cared to for one night. The outside air temperature overnight got down to 51 degrees F but we closed the roof vents, and only left the windows open a crack, before going to bed last night so the inside temperature only dropped to 65. I did not plug in the shorepower cord when we got here yesterday so I could not use the electric heater pad on the bed, but we had plenty of covers (and cats) to keep us warm and I did not need the extra heat. I put on my sweats this morning, and was very comfortable.

Linda got up around 7:45 AM to take her medications. She needed to heat a cup of water to make a salt water gargle mixture but the house batteries were down to 24.0 VDC. That is roughly a 50% SOC (State Of Charge). Lead acid batteries, including AGMs, can be discharged a bit more than that but it shortens the number of times they can be cycled so I do not like to let them go much below that level. I took a few minutes to plug in the shorepower cord and soon enough we had 240/120 VAC power to the coach. After Linda prepared her gargle mixture I rearranged the kitchen counter and then made coffee and got our vitamins and juice ready.

Linda tried to play a few games on her iPad while I worked on the drafts of my blog posts for the last two days and started the one for today. Pat and Vickie were out walking and stopped by to see how Linda was doing. I walked over to the office at 11 to register/pay for the next 7 nights of camping and walked past site #352 on the way. It was still occupied, but the current occupants were clearly in the final stages of vacating the site. I walked past the site again on my way back from the office and the current occupants were just pulling out. When I got back to our coach I let Linda know it was time to move.

We walked over to the new site to scope out where to put the car and how to approach getting the coach backed in and then walked back to our current site. Linda closed the front windows and secured a few loose items, but mostly left everything sitting right where it was as we were only going for a short, easy ride. I turned off the Aqua-Hot electric heating element and then took care of the outside stuff. I shut off the shorepower, disconnected the cord, and stowed it away, once again wishing that I had a cord reel. I turned on the chassis batteries and engine accessory air supply, and started the engine. While the engine idled and the chassis aired up Linda drove the car to the new site, parked it, and awaited my arrival.

Moving the coach from site #343 to site #352 was a simple matter of driving counterclockwise almost all the way around Red Knot Circle, the easternmost loop of the campground, and pulling into Siskin Drive headed east. The location of trees and a light pole made for a tricky spot to get into. The guy in the site to our east (driver’s side) offered to move his truck but I determined that it was not really in the way.

I lifted the tag axle to shorten the turning radius of the bus while maneuvering through the campground. The drive was easy but it took a little bit of back and forth for Linda to get me backed in and centered on the concrete pad. The trees at the back of the site were trimmed up high enough that I could back the coach in far enough to just get the steer tires onto the pad. That was important as the pad was level enough that I did not need to adjust the leveling of the coach, which was a good thing because yesterday the front end portion of the Level Low system would not work. I got out of the coach a couple of times to check the location of the tires and tree limbs and was pleased to see that the tag axle tires were actually off the ground.

I shut the engine down and we went through a modified arrival routine. As usual, I shut off the chassis batteries, closed the air supply valve for the engine accessories, plugged in the shorepower cord, and put power to the coach. The Magnum 4024 inverter/charger worked fine yesterday and it worked fine again today. I do not know what caused the fault on the drive up from Arcadia to Webster, but resetting the unit seems to have restored it to proper operation.

The beach at Jetty Park & Campground looking south at Cocoa Beach, FL.

Linda got out the door mat, patio mat, our two bag chairs, and our plastic side table. She also got the tire covers out of the car and put them on the bus. I got out the windshield covers and the Little Giant step/extension ladder and set it up. I retrieved the rivets to hold the lower windshield wipers off the glass and then Linda handed me the windshield wiper covers. I wanted to put these on first to protect the windshield cover from getting snagged on the metal edges of the arms and wiper blade inserts.

This was the first time we have put the new windshield covers on since we got them two weeks ago so we had to figure out the easiest way to do it, or at least a way that worked. We positioned the large one-piece windshield cover behind the lower wipers and above their drive shafts. That supported the fabric while I pulled it up under the upper wipers and attached the upper center snap and the lower driver side corner snap. I repositioned the ladder to the driver side front corner of the bus, pulled the fabric up, and attached the driver side upper corner snap. I moved the ladder to the passenger side front corner of the bus, pulled the fabric up, attached the upper corner snap, and then the lower corner snap. I had to stretch to reach the upper snaps, so next time I will make the step ladder a little taller.

There are three covers for the passenger side: one for the door, one for the window above the door, and one for the window behind the door. These are all small enough that there was no particular difficulty attaching them. The trick was to start at the top and attach as many snaps as possible before climbing down and repositioning the ladder. For the one large driver side cover I started with the upper center snap, then attached the upper rear snap. I moved the ladder forward and attached the upper front snap and then did the three bottom snaps. When we were done with that we were finally free to relax. Vickie and Linda discussed walking the park and Linda suggested starting between 3 and 3:30 PM. I gathered she was finally feeling a little better, or was just sick and tired of being sick and tired.

At 2 PM Linda asked me get her some more tissues and sore throat spray. I headed for the CVS pharmacy but ended up at the Publix supermarket, which is closer by a mile or so. Besides liking Publix, that meant less traffic to deal with. Somewhat like the Florida Keys, but not as extreme, we are on a long, skinny island with one main road running along its spine. Unlike the Keys, there are more side roads and an occasional causeway that goes over to Merritt Island and on to the mainland. I found what I needed at Publix and was back at the park in due course.

At 3:30 PM we went for a stroll around the campground and park with Vickie as tour guide. After our stroll Linda was hungry and heated up some Amy’s Tomato Bisque Soup (vegan). I was really tired and laid down in bed to take a nap that lasted over two hours. When I got up I had the rest of the soup and a large green salad. We then watched out usual Tuesday evening CBS TV programs but did not get to see the last 15 minutes of Limitless as Vickie texted to jet me know they were on their way over to fetch us and walk to the shipping channel to watch the rocket launch.

The Atlas V resupply mission for the International Space Station lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station right on schedule at 11:05 PM. The launch pad was much farther away from our position than the one used for the military satellite launch two years ago, but was illuminated by multiple light sources producing beams and shadows projecting up and highlighted by the clouds. For all the launches Pat and Vickie have seen from this park, this was the first time they recalled seeing these lights.

Even though the Atlas V was a much larger rocket than one I saw two years ago, it was not as loud or as visually impressive as the other one. There were scattered clouds at liftoff, which made for interesting viewing, but the rocket was fairly quickly above them and then disappeared from sight. I tried to take a few photos, but I did not bother bringing the tripod or spend any time ahead of time figuring out appropriate camera settings. I did, however, spend a few minutes playing with manual adjustment of the ISO setting.

A man sitting next to me was monitoring mission control on a radio so we knew what was going on before, during, and after the launch. Only minutes after liftoff the rocket had burned enough fuel to reduce its weight by 75%, was 120 miles above the surface of the earth, was 338 miles downrange, and was traveling just under 10,000 miles per hour! It’s time to orbit was projected to be 21 minutes and I believe the orbital velocity would be approximately 18,000 MPH. (The actual orbital velocity would obviously be a very exact number.)

When it was all over we carried our chairs back to our rig and then walked to Pat and Vickie’s coach so she could drop her’s off. Pat went in for the evening but the three of us went for a leisurely midnight stroll around the entire campground. In spite of the event that had just occurred the campground was quiet. There is some general purpose street lighting here, but not too much. It’s a nice campground and I could see why Pat and Vickie like to come here.

Back at our coach Linda decided to sleep in the living room. More specifically, she decided to sleep in the two captain’s chairs by locking them in position facing one another, reclining the backs, and putting the hassock between them. She thought she might sleep better in a partially upright position. I finished a few e-mails and retired to the bedroom where I was joined by the cats. I was too tired to write but too awake to go right to sleep so I turned on the TV. After flipping through the channels I settled on an old movie, The Battle of Britain. By 2 AM it was still on, owing to too much time for commercials and not enough time for the movie, so I turned it off and went to sleep.

The “Jetty” and pier at Jetty Park. Cape Canaveral, FL.

2016/03/23 (W) On The Road To Recovery

Linda slept seven hours last night with very little coughing, at least that I heard. She slept in the living room (her choice) and left the bedroom to me. I had a long early evening nap and did not fall asleep until 2 AM. Even then I did not sleep that well and got up at 8 AM. Linda was still asleep but woke up not long after. She wanted coffee so rather than grind up beans and deal with the whole do-it-yourself process we walked up to the campground office with our two Tervis mugs/caps and filled them there. Free coffee all day, every day, is a nice campground amenity and not one we have found anywhere else.

Pat and Vickie decided to go to Epcot Center at Disney World today for the annual flower and garden show. Vickie texted me to see how Linda was doing and if we wanted to go. Linda was definitely not well enough yet to go anywhere or do anything, so we stayed behind and had an easy day at our home on wheels, starting with toast and jam for our breakfast. Linda read a little and checked our banking. I talked to my sister about our dad for a bit, but spent most of the morning completing draft blog posts for the last three days. We both got showers, which brought our fresh water level down to ~1/6th tank (20 gallons).

I copied the photos I’ve taken during the last week, including the rocket launch last night, to my computer. I selected one of the rocket launch for this week’s post card, processed it, and e-mailed it to Linda’s iPad. While she created a post card for grand-daughter Madeline, I connected the fresh water hose and water softener, tested the harness of the water supply, (7 to 10 gpg), filled the fresh water tank (100 gallons), and connected the waste water drain hose.

With my outside chores done I selected two photos from my article on replacing the bearings in a Webasto diesel burner and e-mailed the image numbers to Gary and Jorge at BCM. They will be used on the “Coming in June” page of the May issue, one for my articles and one for Lloyd DeGerald’s multi-step maintenance list.

The nighttime launch of a rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station as seen from Jetty Park. Note: This was a long-exposure handheld shot. I was braced against a sign to take it.

I heated a can of Amy’s Golden Lentil “Indian Dal” soup and washed some black grapes for our lunch. There was a cool breeze outside but a bit of heat gain in the coach so we sat outside, doodled on our iPads, and dozed in our folding bag chairs. A little before 5 PM Linda decided she wanted to go for a walk on the beach. The wind was strong out of the east with 3 to 4 foot waves breaking just off shore, but the late afternoon sun was warm enough to make for a pleasant stroll south towards Cocoa Beach. As the sun dropped lower in the sky and was filtered by thin clouds it turned slightly chilly so we turned around and headed back to Jetty Park. We continued our walk through the picnic and playground area and walked along the channel to the boat ramps and then to the campground office. We got a couple of cups of coffee and sat down to watch the news but the TV was tuned to FOX News, so we left and walked back to our site, noting that Pat and Vickie’s car was back at their site.

We discussed what to do for dinner and decided on cooking the vegan Italian sausage and using it to top a salad. I texted Vickie to ask how the garden and flower show was, and let her know that Linda was feeling slightly better. We gave the cats their monthly dose of Cheristin flea medication, which they were due for yesterday.

Vickie came over at 7:15 PM with her iPad and we looked at all of the pictures she took at the Epcot Center Flower and Garden show. It was clearly a spectacular exhibition and since we could not attend we were glad to see it through Vickie’s photographs. By the time Vickie returned to her coach it was almost 9 PM so Linda suggested that we just have granola for dinner. That sounded quick and easy to me, besides which I love her granola, so I did not need any convincing.

On Wednesday evenings we like to watch nature, science, and technology programs on PBS. We have two PBS stations potentially available to us here at Jetty Park Campground but neither of them have 100% reliable signals. I experimented with a range of antenna directions and selected the one that seemed to offer the most reliable signal for the 24.n channels. NOVA was on the recreation of Noah’s Ark and Secrets of the Dead was on the discovery of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in Ninevah, 250 miles north of Babylon and built by King Sennacherib.

Linda once again set up the captain’s chairs as a bed so she could sleep sitting up. I could not tune in channel 24 in the bedroom so I finished watching the show in the living room. At 11 PM I tuned off the lights in the front of the coach and left Linda to sleep while I retired to the bedroom to write, play a few games, and watch a little more TV before going to sleep.

2016/03/12-14 (S-M) Middle of Nowhere Close to Everywhere

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2016/03/12 (S) J.A.P.

The temperature had only dropped into the mid-60’s last night and it was foggy when we got up this morning, but we knew the humidity was up because we could feel the dampness. Speaking of dampness, the sprinklers came on last night around 3 AM. We must have both been partly awake as we both heard the sound, which was unusual enough to get our attention. The cats heard it too and were at the driver side bedroom window to check it out. It got my attention because it sounded like rain and we had all three roof vents open, along with most of the windows. Anything that sounds like water will wake me up.

Webster Flea Market and Sumter Co, Florida Farmers Market.

There was a breakfast in the clubhouse at 8 AM this morning, with food being served at 9, but we did not go. It was $5 per person, but that’s a lot to pay for coffee. Speaking of which, I opened new packs of our four coffee beans this morning, transferred them to the metal storage containers, and then brewed a pot of Sweet Seattle Dreams.

We talked over coffee about what to do today while we doodled on our iPads. Linda had a list of six things we could do in Clermont and noted that there was a Farmers’ Market in Webster from 8 AM to 3 PM today. We also had updates pending for our iPads and smartphones so she checked our Verizon data usage. We had used 8 of our 12 GB with eight days left in our billing cycle, so we were on track to stay within our data plan as long as we used the resort Wi-Fi system to do our updates.

Linda served homemade granola with fresh blueberries for breakfast. After breakfast she went for her morning walk and I dealt with a few e-mails. When she returned from her walk we drove to the Walmart in/near Bushnell for a few things. We were going to stop at the Farmers Market in Webster on the way back but there was only one small vendor there. A little farther north on CR-471 we passed the Sumter County Fairgrounds. None of the rides were operating, so we did not know if the fair was open. We were thinking about driving over this evening to see everything lit up at night.

Back at FGMCR Linda made very nice salads for lunch which included asparagus and Cremini mushroom pieces that she cooked briefly. Very tasty. After lunch we packed up our technology and went to the library in the clubhouse to download/install updates.

We each had four phone app updates, four iPad app updates, and one Windows 10 update. I also had an update for the NVIDIA GPU in my computer so that made a total of 19 updates. That was actually a small number compared to the 60+ we installed the other day. Even so, at an average file size of 30 MB that was over 500 MB of data, so I figured we were over 0.5 GB but probably under 1.0 GB. After the updates were done we spent a little time trying to configure our Windows 10 Start Menus. We were annoyed to find that the Start menu configuration tab is missing from the “Task Bar and Start Menu Properties” dialog screen on both of our computers. Arrrrgh. I did, however, get a couple of icons to show up where I wanted them and we learned how to “turn off” the “live tiles” in the metro interface. We wrapped up around 2:45 PM and went back to our rig.

After getting our tech tools peered up and connected to our network I took a nap while Linda stayed up and read. Jasper (the cat) curled up with me on the bed and took a cat nap. I got up at 4:30 PM and joined Linda outside where another beautiful day was in progress with cool breezes and perfect temperatures (in the shade).

For dinner, Linda made a salad with an arugula base, vegan Italian sausage, sun-dried tomatoes, garbanzo beans, onions, and yellow peppers. After dinner we went for our evening stroll around the resort. When we got back to our coach we each had a small glass of Moscato (Barefoot) and fresh strawberries for dessert.

A mobile ATM machine at the famous Webster Flea Market. Webster, FL.

The title of today’s post is not an ethnic slur or reference, it’s just an acknowledgment of our status here at Florida Grande Motor Coach Resort (FGMCR); “Just Another Prevost.” Unlike our minor celebrity status at Big Tree Carefree RV Resort in Arcadia, where we were T.O.P. (“The Only Prevost”), there are quite a few Prevost motorcoach conversions at FGMCR, and most of them are newer, bigger, and nicer than ours. And that is fine with us.

TV stations continued to be a challenge. I moved the antennas to position 16, which is approximately the 8 o’clock position relative to the nose of the bus, and rescanned. The front TV found over 70 signals and the rear TV found 56. As with previous experiments, however, many of the signals were unusable and others were for stations from other directions that we should not even have been detecting.

What we need to do is to move both antennas to each of their 16 positions, rescan, and then check to see which channels are usable and write them down. Signal patterns can be different at night than during the day, so we should repeat this procedure in the evening. That would be 64 separate scans, but in an area such as where we are now, with stations in multiple, opposing directions, it would be the only sure fire way to know what stations are available and where point the antennas to tune them in.

2016/03/13 (N) Saving Daylight

We were being lazier than usual this morning and did get up until 8 o’clock. During the overnight hours the nation switched from ‘standard’ to ‘daylight’ (savings) time. There are a few places, most notably the State of Arizona, that do not change their clocks, but for the rest of us it was an hour later when we got up this morning than our clocks indicated. Unless, of course, they happened to adjust automatically, like our smartphones, iPads, computers, Linda’s FitBit, or our GPS navigation devices. These devices adjust the time based on an internal program, Internet connection, or GPS signal.

As much as I wanted to reset the other clocks in the rig (we have six that do not adjust automatically) Linda insisted that I make the coffee first. I enjoyed most of my first cup while finishing yesterday’s blog post and then reset the manual clocks. We have an analog RV clock (with hour, minute, and second hands) in the living room, the clock in the microwave oven, a digital alarm click in the house systems panel by the refrigerator, and an identical one in the systems panel on my side of the bed. The Magnum 4024 ME-ARC remote has a clock in it, and there is a small digital clock/thermometer stuck on the dashboard. (Which reminds me that I would like to install a round, gauge-style clock in the dashboard someday.)

Linda made a tofu scramble for breakfast with onions, mushrooms, garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, asparagus pieces, and turmeric. She does not make this dish very often but it always a treat when she does.

Linda went for a walk after breakfast while I checked our driver side tag axle hub. I called our mobile mechanic, Joe Cannarozzi, this past Thursday to discuss the high temperature alarm we got on the bus’s driver side tag tire while driving to Florida Grande Motor Coach Resort (FGMCR) from Big Tree Carefree RV Resort (BTCRVR) on Monday. He suggested I check the back side of the wheel for oil leaks and pull the hub cap off to check the oil level of the axle hub. I checked the back of the wheel the other night after it got dark but did not see any oil residue. Pulling the hub cap was a daytime job, so I finally did that today. What I found was that the oil level was just below the bottom of the fill hole, so the hub was properly lubricated and almost certainly not leaking.

As long as I was at it, I removed the TireTracker temperature/pressure sensor and checked the pressure in the tire with my gauge. It was 85.0 PSI, which was reasonable, given that it was sitting in the sun (with the tire cover on) and I had set it a week ago to 82.5 PSI while it was cooler and in the shade. It’s possible that the battery is almost depleted or that the sensor has malfunctioned, but I doubt it. Since it is easier and cheaper to replace the battery we bought a couple of CR1632 3V batteries at Walmart the other day. I unscrewed the cover, slid the old battery out, slid the new one in, and replaced the cover. I put the sensor back on the valve stem and turned on the receiver but it did not pick up the sensor right away. I will have to check the manual to see if I have to re-associate the sensor with the receiver. I put the tire cover back on, put my tool boxes away, closed up the bays, and went inside to upload posts to the blog.

This guy was actually making ice cream with this old John Deere contraption. Webster Flea Market. Webster, FL.

While I was working, Linda returned part way through her walk to let me know that Nick’s R.V. Detailing & Pressure Washing was in the resort cleaning someone’s rig. We agreed that we should hire them and she continued her walk in that direction. When she returned she said that Nick had us on his schedule for Friday, March 18. He has a regular job on Mondays through Thursdays and only works on RVs on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. We got a business card from him yesterday so I sent him an e-mail confirming the date and giving him our site number and my cell phone number.

Rather than rearrange our shower we went to the clubhouse and used the shower facilities there. A music jam session was scheduled to start at 2 PM but there was also rain in the forecast for that same time. We did not want to close up the coach so we decided to pass on the music jam for this week.

Back at our coach we had some orange and grapefruit segments, a few nuts, and a few pretzels with hummus for a lunch snack. I was checking RVillage and saw that Curtis had posted several items to the RVillage Ambassadors group. I commented on a couple of them and then private messaged him. He and the team are very busy so I try not to bother him, but as often happens my message prompted a phone call. Strangely, my phone did not ring and went straight to voice mail. Perhaps it was because I had the Wi-Fi turned on, but I’m not sure. I called him back and put the call on speaker so Linda could also participate. There are a lot of interesting and exciting things happening with RVillage and we had a nice, long chat.

I had a text message back from Joe with instructions on how to check the driver side tag wheel for a dragging brake. The procedure was simple and easily carried out because the tag axle is: a) free wheeling, and b) can be lifted clear of the ground. That means that all I have to do is start the engine, lift the tag axle, spin the wheels, and compared the drag on the two sides. If the driver side does not spin as freely it means the brakes are rubbing more than they should. (The disc brake pads are always lightly in touch with the surface of the brake rotor which keeps detritus from getting between the rotor and the pads, preheats the pads/rotor for more effective breaking, and shortens the reaction time before braking takes place once it is requested.)

The possibility of rain started rising at 1 PM as the clouds thickened and darkened. It spritzed occasionally throughout the afternoon and into the early evening but never really rained. I managed to upload blog posts for November 18 through 22.

For dinner, Linda made brown rice and broccoli with Dijon mustard. It was simple but slightly creamy, which gave it a subtle quality. It was very yummy. After dinner we went for a walk around the resort. The weather continued overcast with dramatic clouds to the north but all we got was a few raindrops and the temperature was very pleasant if a bit humid. I suggested that we sit outside and have a small glass of wine but Linda informed me that the only wine we had onboard was a bottle of ice wine that we brought along for a special occasion. Ice wines are very sweet and usually served as a dessert wine. Every day is special for us, but this did not seem like the occasion to open a bottle of ice wine. We doodled on our iPads while we watched reruns of a couple of TV programs and then went to bed. There was a small chance of scattered rain showers overnight, but we left the roof vents open and two of the exhaust fans running.

2016/03/14 (M) Webster Flea & Farmers Markets

Linda was up early this morning (6AM) and decided to go for a walk at 7. I got up closer to 8 AM and got dressed. I did not make coffee and we did not eat breakfast. On Friday Linda was reading about the Webster Flea Market and Sumter County Farmers’ Market. The Flea Market is the oldest and largest in Florida which, along with the Farmers Market, occupies a 40 acre site on the west side of CR-471 in downtown Webster. The website said it was one of the “top 10 attractions” in Florida. They are only open on Mondays and they draw a large number of vendors and a very large number of shoppers. Florida Grande Motor Coach Resort (FGMCR) is only a few miles from downtown Webster, and today was the only Monday we would be in the area, so of course we went to check out.

When we arrived at the market site around 8:30 AM there were already a lot of cars and people there. We drove past numerous places selling parking space but we were able to find free parking on the flea market grounds not far from where the food vendors were set up at the Sumter County Farmers Market. I strapped on my camera harness and Linda carried the small camera bag as we ventured forth into the crowd.

The sites on our side of the street looking south from our site at Florida Grande Motor Coach Resort near Webster, FL.

We walked through the Farmers Market area first so Linda could get a sense of what was there. The markets open at 5 AM and close at 3 PM so we were surprised that a lot of vendors were just setting up as we walked through. I took a few pictures, but really interesting photos were few and far between. We wandered through the grounds trying to get a sense of the layout of the place, the stuff for sale, and the people selling/buying it. The Farmers Market was in the northeast corner. Just south of that was a fenced area with vendors under long, open-sided pavilions. Just south of that were long concrete block buildings with stalls secured by overhead garage doors. A sign indicated that this was the area with stores selling antiques, and that there were 66 stalls.

To the west of all of this was the West Webster Market area on the other side of a fence with open gates. This area had a few open-sided pavilions but it was mostly “trunk sales”, at least that’s what we call it at ham radio swap meets. Vendors had a designated area in which to park their vehicle and sell their stuff, some of which was still in the trunk of a car or side door of a van. Some was displayed on tables that the vendors brought, and some was laid out on the ground. Throughout the venue there were lots of food vendors and occasional live music performers.

We are not flea market people and we did not see anything that we had to have. We found a piece of Pyrex that we thought Meghan would like and Linda sent her a picture. It was a 1959 Golden Branch Promotional Hospitality Round Casserole. We did not hear back right away and decided to go ahead and buy it for $20. We found out later that she thought it was worth $5. That is just one of the many reasons we do not shop at flea markets.

We returned to the Farmers Market where Linda bought 1/2 flat of strawberries for $5 along with kale, Swiss chard, green beans, onions, mushrooms, and scallions, all for very good prices. We like farmers markets. We remembered how bad the traffic heading south out of Webster was last Monday at 2 PM as we were coming north so we returned to the car and left the grounds a little before noon.

We took one of the streets through town to have a look at the place. Webster is a small, impoverished town where people appear to live with little or no self-respect or consideration for their neighbors. It is one of the saddest looking places we have ever seen. FGMCR is not actually in the city limits of Webster but has a Webster mailing address. It is far enough away from the actual town, and surrounded by cattle fields, to be a quiet, peaceful place isolated from the poverty of Webster. What makes it an acceptable location for an RV resort is that it is only 10 miles from the Walmart at I-75 in Bushnell, 17 miles to the Publix supermarket in Groveland, 23 miles to Clermont (lots of shopping and a few attractions), 25 miles to The Villages (lots of shopping, restaurants, and medical services), and 50 miles to Brooksville, Ocala, and Orlando. A 90 to 100 mile radius takes in everyplace from Arcadia to Tampa St. Petersburg, up the “Sun Coast” through Weeki Wachi, Homosassa, and Crystal River, and then inland to Gainesville (including Williston) and over to Daytona, Cape Canaveral, and on down the Atlantic coast. FGMCR’s motto is “…in the middle of nowhere, but close to everywhere” and it is a fitting one.

The forecast for the rest of the week is for daily high temperatures in the mid-to-upper 80’s with party cloudy skies and some humidity. A good breeze was blowing from the south today but we judged it to be mild enough that we could deploy our awnings. Linda closed all of the windows and I closed the roof vents and turned on the air-conditioners. Linda got the three silver bubble wrap insulating panels out from under the bed and I installed them in the skylights.

Linda prepared some oranges and strawberries for lunch after which she settled in to work on taxes while I worked on this post. The wind intensified, and less than hour after we put out the awnings we put them back in. I spent the rest of the afternoon uploading the posts for November 23 through 30 (2015) to our blog. That meant I was caught up to the point in time when we left Michigan and arrived in Florida for the winter and was now only 3-1/2 months behind on uploading my posts.

Linda took a short nap from 4:45 to 5 PM, and then started preparing dinner. She made a nice collard greens salad with homemade croutons, homemade vegan “Parmesan” cheese, and a homemade lemon-juice dressing. It was crisp, light, delicious, and ample along with a side of sautéed green beans and carrot rounds. A glass of white wine would have been a nice accompaniment, but we still do not have any on board.

We ate dinner a little earlier than normal and, with the change to daylight savings time, there was still a couple of hours of daylight left before subset. Large, puffy clouds, in shades from bright white to dark gray, dominated the sky and the low angle, early evening sunlight was brilliant, dramatic, and colorful. We went for a walk around the resort and I took the camera along. I paused often to capture images and we stopped occasionally to chat briefly with folks. We were almost back to our coach when we stopped to talk to Dennis.

Dennis and his wife are part of the group of 59 property owners who have a free and clear title to their lot. He knew quite a bit about the history, current status, and future development of the resort. We had heard bits and pieces, so he filled in a few details and clarified a few others.

The hedges that separate and define the lots were all planted as part of the original development, as were the flower beds. Each site has palm trees and they are planted in the very the same locations on each site except at corners and curves in the road where adjustments had to be made. Owners have personalized their choice of flowers over time but the locations of the beds are tightly regulated by the deed restrictions and controlled by the POA architectural review board.

The villas are all identical on the outside and have to stay that way. They are constructed in a large building at the back of the property, trucked to the site on a flatbed trailer, and set in place on their pad with a crane. Once they are strapped down (hurricane code) and the utilities are connected the owners can finish the interiors however they want.

Linda sitting in the corner of the library in the clubhouse at Florida Grande Motor Coach Resort near Webster, FL.

Only recently have owners been allowed to add a pergola at the rear of their villa to shade the portion of the parking pad that wraps around behind the building. The addition of the low stone border walls around the hedges and planting beds is also a recent change. Each layout is unique but must use the same exact stones and the layout must be submitted to the POA architectural committee for approval. Personally, I like the uniformity of materials but appreciate the uniqueness of each design. There are only nine pergolas at this point (according to Dennis) and I estimate no more three dozen sites with stone walls (out of 249 sites) but they look very nice and the resort will look more and more “finished” and interesting as more owners add these personal touches.

As for future development, Dennis said that all of the problems from the past have been taken care of and the current developer (Mr. Smith) has told property owners that he has brought the park out of bankruptcy. The reason that the “group of 99” property owners are going to have to pay $22K (each) to get their free/clear deeds is that they had liens on their lots when the project went into bankruptcy and Mr. Smith had to buy the liens as part of resolving the bankruptcy. He has also told the current owners that he expects fully developing the resort to take 10 more years and that he plans to finish Phase 2 in sections rather than all at once. Dennis seemed to think that was prudent and that Mr. Smith was both an honest and competent businessman.

The water and sewage systems are part of the 400 acre resort property and are sized to handle the eventual 499 sites. Most of the infrastructure is in place for Phase 2 but not the sewage lift pumps or paved roads. He will have the road paved, and the pumps installed and made operational, as he opens each section. The water system is also sized to handle the irrigation and fire suppression needs of the park. Every site has in-ground sprinklers that are activated on a rotating basis over the course of a week. Indeed, all of the grounds maintenance is handled by the resort as part of the currently very modest $500/quarter POA fee, including grass mowing and hedge trimming. The infrastructure here is very impressive.

Dennis was of the opinion that the risks of investing in this park, going forward, were minimal. He also clarified that Mr. Smith’s stated plan is to commence with work on Phase 2 when 90% of the lots in Phase 1 are sold and that the resort is close to that point now. He wasn’t trying to sell us anything, but thought that a few bargains remained if someone wanted to buy out one of the 99 properties, many of which have been for sale. That group of (would be) owners apparently got hurt financially. He also told us the same thing we have heard from others, that they like the quiet and solitude that comes with the resort’s relatively isolated location but access to a great deal within a one hour drive, and access to almost everything within a two hour driving radius. (What he did not say, and no one else has either, is that this would not be a good location in which to have a serious medical emergency.)

Back at our rig we turned off the air-conditioners, opened up the coach, and settled in to watch our Monday evening TV programs on CBS. I off-loaded the photos I took today to my computer and backed them up to the NAS. Linda headed off to bed at 11 PM. I stayed up to watch the news and weather and caught part of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert before turning in.

2016/03/09-11 (W-F) Shop Eat Be Happy

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2016/03/09 (W) Groveland, Publix, Updates

I was busy interacting with Bill and Brenda, and photographing their work, for much of the morning yesterday as well as diagnosing/fixing the problem with the charger section of the Magnum 4024. The charger problem took me past lunchtime and a return call to John Palmer to let him know that it was resolved, at least for now. We were sitting during the afternoon when Joan and Bill (from Boston) stopped by with their miniature schnauzer, Toby, and sat awhile to visit. As a result I did not start working on yesterday’s blog post until after we had eaten dinner and gone for a walk. I was up until The Late Show with Stephen Colbert ended at 12:30 AM (on Wednesday) but did not quite finish the post.

For the record, the Magnum 4024 appears to be working again (for now) and the house batteries were back up to full charge by last evening. After much consternation yesterday the “fix” turned out to just be a reset of the unit. The “trick” was following the directions in the manual. Easy enough to do, and it doesn’t require very many words to describe, but it took a lot of time to get to that point and rule out other possible problems.

We were both feeling tired this morning, and perhaps a bit lazy, and did not get up until 8 AM. While Linda made oatmeal from scratch with raisins, dates, and walnuts I fiddled with the rear TV and antenna trying to tune in stations. I tried using the www.antennapoint.com website to locate TV transmitter towers but it said there weren’t any within 60 miles. I knew that wasn’t true and I have had problems with this website the last few times I have tried to use it, so I’m done with it and used the TVFool.com website instead. It found four dozen towers within 60 miles, but none closer than 53 miles. Most of the stations were in three clusters, generally corresponding to Tampa (195 degrees), Ocala (350 degrees), and Orlando (90 degrees).

We have the front antenna at position ‘8’ which is approximate the 2 o’clock direction relative to the nose of the bus, which is the 12 o’clock position, and is currently pointing south of due west at 255 degrees. That means the antenna is pointed in the general direction of the Ocala area stations, but we seem to only be picking up the Tampa area stations with signals that are strong enough to lock onto.

The rear TV/antenna is finding signals from both Tampa and Ocala but is unable to lock on to any of them. I turned it to position ’14’, which is approximately the 6:30 orientation on the bus and corresponded to east, towards Orlando. When I rescanned I was finally able to pick up some stations that the TV could lock onto. The rear TV antenna, however, has been defective since the day I installed it which was, unfortunately, over a year after I purchased it. Thus, it was out of warranty before I ever applied power to it.

When I was done playing with the TV I made our morning coffee and we sat down to breakfast while the coffee brewed. After breakfast Linda played her morning word games while I finished yesterday’s blog post and started today’s post. Linda made a grocery list and then got dressed and went for a walk while I continued to write.

Linda located a Publix supermarket on FL-50 in Groveland approximately 3/4 of the way to Clermont. The city of Clermont is about 23 miles east of Webster and a few miles west of US-27. It is the historic center of the Florida citrus industry and a place we plan to visit at least once while we are staying at Florida Grande Motor Coach Resort (FGMCR).

US-27 is the highway we used to go to South Florida several times last month. It runs northwest from Miami and then turns north, more or less paralleling the Atlantic coast of Florida some distance inland. It passes along the west edge of Lake Okeechobee and passes near a string of towns that include Sebring, Frostproof, and Winter Haven before reaching the Clermont area. From there it turns northwest and runs through Ocala and Williston, eventually reaching Branford where it turns more westerly towards Mayo and the Florida panhandle. Having spent winter 2014 in Williston, traveled home by way of the panhandle, and then returned to Williston by way of Mayo for Dec 2015, we have probably traveled as many miles on US-27 in Florida as we have on I-75 or any other particular road.

We left at 10:15 AM to drive to the Publix. We headed west back into Webster, dropped south on FL-471 about 5 miles to FL-50, and headed east. It was a nice drive on FL-50 eastbound and the terrain became slightly hilly as we passed through Mascotte just before reaching the supermarket on the west side of Groveland. We were back at our coach around 12:30 PM and split an apple for lunch.

We both had multiple updates pending for our iPad and smartphone apps, and numerous updates for the Windows 10 OS on our laptop computers, so we wanted to use the resort Wi-Fi to download and install the updates. I shut down and packed up our computers and iPads and we drove over to the library room in the clubhouse. I checked the Wi-Fi signal strength with my phone and it was strong enough to use so we set up all of our devices.

I did not count them all, but I estimated that we had between 60 and 70 updates across our six devices, requiring somewhere between 1.5 and 2.0 GB of data. Linda’s updates completed smoothly and more quickly than mine as my ASUS laptop appeared to hang up on the download of the OS update. I ultimately shut down and restarted my computer to get things moving along again.

As we were getting near the end of the process the Internet connection went out. We were still connected to the Wi-Fi but had no Internet access so I walked around to the office to see if they knew about it and needed to reset the gateway. They did know about it because it affected them too, and Joann said it happens with some regularity, often around mid-afternoon. By the time I returned to the library the connection had been restored. Linda walked back to our coach at 3:30 PM but it took me until 4:30 PM to complete my computer updates.

After I got back to our coach and set up my computer we went for a walk around the resort. Back at our coach I off-loaded the photos I took on Monday and Tuesday from my camera to my computer. I processed one of Mara, Michael, Linda, and me (that was taken by someone at the RV park) and e-mailed it to Mara. I processed three photos of our bus at our site at Florida Grande and five photos of the window covers that Bill and Brenda Phelan made for use yesterday. I uploaded the photos to a couple of Dropbox folders and e-mailed the links to Brenda, Chuck Spera, and Ed Roelle.

For dinner Linda made a salad with a kale and arugula base, tomatoes, almonds, dried cranberries, and firm teriyaki tofu, and used an Asian sesame dressing. So good. Dessert was fresh strawberries, blueberries, and bananas. After dinner we poured a couple of small glasses of white wine and sat outside enjoying the cool night breeze and looking at the stars. We agreed that it was the first night since we arrived in Florida on December 1st that the weather conditions seemed perfect for just sitting outside after sunset. We also agreed that our initial experience of FGMCR is very positive.

I texted Al Hesselbart to see if he is still at Breezy Oaks near Bushnell. If he is we will probably drive over there tomorrow for the 2 PM music jam and then go to dinner. I checked my e-mail and had replies from Ed Roelle and Brenda Phelan. I also had one from Christy Budai letting me known that the chapter certification paperwork for our FMCA GLCC chapter had finally been submitted.

We do not have the same TV stations here that we had in Arcadia and the PBS stations we can get do not carry the same programming. That left us without our usual Wednesday evening science and nature shows. Linda is tired most nights by 10 PM and headed off to bed before 10:30. I stayed up working on this post and caught some news, weather, and the beginning of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

2016/03/10 (R) Coyote Rojo Redux

I was up at 7:15 AM and Linda got up a few minutes later. I did not start recharging the Verizon Mi-Fi soon enough last night, and did not leave it plugged in overnight, so the battery died and it went offline sometime before I got up. I plugged the charger back in, got our network back online, and then made coffee.

Sometimes it takes a while but I eventually think of things. It occurred to me this morning that I can cycle the charge on the house batteries while the coach is plugged in to an external source of AC power. All I have to do to draw down the charge is turn off the charger section and let the DC loads run off the batteries. Why this had never occurred to me before, and why it finally did this morning, I have no idea. Perhaps it was because I finally had a problem in need of a solution. I am not 100% confident about the charger section of the Magnum 4024 at this point and noticed yesterday that at Full Charge the indicated voltage was a bit higher than 25.2 VDC. The weather forecast for today, however, is SE winds at 10-to-20 MPH with gusts to 30 and a high temperature of 87 degrees F; probably not the day to be playing with the house DC power system.

I had not gotten a reply to the text message I sent Al Hesselbart last night so I called him. He picked up right away and reminded me that he does not send or receive text messages. He was out fishing with a friend on Lake Panasoffkee and did not expect to be back in time for the 2 PM music jam. He was open to having dinner and thought they would be back by 5 PM. He agreed to call me when they were leaving the Lake and we would agree on a time to meet at the Mexican restaurant near Bushnell.

Al was the executive director of the RV&MH Museum and Hall of Fame in Elkhart, Indiana for many years and then served as the museum’s historian for quite a while before retiring. He full time RVs in a 1977 Newell that he moves back and forth between Breezy Oaks and Elkhart Campground in Elkhart, Indiana.

Linda moved the cats’ litter tray out of the shower and then went for a walk. I took a shower, got dressed, and started processing more of the photos of Bill and Brenda Phelans’ RV Windshield Covers of Florida mobile workshop and the process they went through to measure, make, and install the external mesh window covers for the cockpit of our bus a few days ago.

The residents across the street and to the left had low decorative stone flower bed borders installed on Tuesday. The five man crew was here all day so we had dust and noise from the saw, but they finished in one day and the result was very nice. The husband, Pete, was out front this morning so I walked over to compliment him on how nice they looked and ended up chatting about the park. He invited me to see their “villa’ (casita, coach house, etc.) so I went back to our rig and got Linda. The wife, Eleanor, arrived a few minutes later in their golf cart. We got a nice tour of their lovely villa and had a nice chat about the resort.

I was working on photos and Linda was reading when we decided that the wind was strong enough to warrant stowing the awnings. In spite of the wind they were easy enough to roll up and it only took a few minutes. We were concerned about heat gain through the uncovered windows on the south facing driver side of the coach so we pulled the opaque white MCD night shades down half way. We opened all of the awning-style Windows wider than usual and turned on the roof vent exhaust fans.

Linda made teriyaki tofu and arugula pocket sandwiches for lunch, after which I continued to work on the photos. I finally uploaded 40 image files to the Dropbox folder I created yesterday for this purpose and e-mailed Brenda to let her know they were there.

I also sent the folder link to Gary, at Bus Conversion Magazine, to see if he would be interested in an article about their converted EMS/ambulance that serves as a live-aboard mobile workshop for their business. Bill and Brenda had converted a couple of buses before buying a Super C motorhome. They also ran the Arcadia Bus Rally for the last five years, after assisting Jack and Paula Conrad for the first 11 years, so they know their way around conversions. They are well known to the magazine and the bus conversion community and I think it would make a good article as Gary transitions BCM from being strictly bus conversions to encompass the broader concept of mobile dwelling conversions.

In spite of the 85 degree afternoon high temperature our rig stayed acceptably comfortable even with the awnings rolled up. The wind was steady at 15 to 20 MPH out of the south with lots of puffy clouds and the relative humidity was 45%. As a result we had good airflow through wide open windows and out the three roof vent exhaust fans, which I had running on speed 2 of 3. The cockpit was still warm, but not like it was before we got the custom windshield and cockpit side window covers.

Juniper (our female cat) likes the heat and slept up on the co-pilot/navigator seat like she always has while Jasper slept on my swivel chair, then in his carrier on the floor, then on our bed, and finally tucked himself away on the tile floor on my side of the bed at the rear of the living area, which is the coolest place in the bus in the afternoon when we are parked facing west. In the late afternoon we sat outside in the shade reading and it was incredibly pleasant. Even though it is almost spring, this is why people go to Florida in the winter.

I called Al at 5:25 PM and they had just gotten back to the dock. They needed to drive back to Breezy Oaks so Al could shower, change clothes, and get his car. He said he would call when he was ready to head to the restaurant as we are approximately the same driving time away. We agreed to meet at Coyote Roho, just west of Bushnell.

We decided to leave at 6 PM without waiting for Al to call so we could check out downtown Bushnell. The restaurant was only a 9.6 mile drive, which our iPad Map app said would take 19 minutes, and Bushnell was a couple of miles short of that. Driving north through Webster we found the Farmer’s and Flea Market site and farther up the road the site of the county fair. The parking lot was full and the amusement rides lit up the area like it was Times Square. There wasn’t much to Bushnell so we drove through to the Walmart parking lot to await Al’s call. We were only there a short time and decided to go on to the restaurant and get a table and have a drink while we waited. As we arrived at the restaurant Linda realized that I had two missed calls and a voice message from Al indicating that he was leaving at 6:15 PM. I called him back and he answered as he was pulling into the parking lot.

We have only eaten at Coyote Rojo one other time, and that was back in December when we drove down from Williston to visit Al at Breezy Oaks and listen to the Thursday afternoon music jam. Our recollection was that the food was good, so we were looking forward to dinner as well as conversation with Al. Linda and I ordered the vegetarian fajitas and a vegetarian burrito and split them. We were underwhelmed by our food but the server was attentive and we enjoyed spending time with Al. We stayed at the restaurant talking long after we had finished our meals but all good things come to an end, or at least have to take a hiatus, and it been a long day for all of us. Al is headed to the FMCA rally in Perry, Georgia all next week so we probably will not cross paths with him again for a while.

On the drive back to our resort the clouds had cleared off and the low humidity resulted in very bright stars. This was the first time we had entered FGMCR at night and it was understated but grand with the street lights lining the curving entrance road and the main level of the clubhouse subtly illuminated.

Linda prepared fresh strawberries and blueberries for dessert and we watched our usual Thursday evening TV programs on CBS. I put the finishing touches on today’s blog post and then went to bed.

2016/03/11 (F) FGMCR Happy Hour

I was up at 7:30 AM, fed the cats, made coffee, and cleaned the bean grinder. Linda was up shortly thereafter and we had orange juice with our vitamins. Breakfast was Publix Premium brand cinnamon raisin English Muffins, which are not really muffins at all. Muffins are small cakes whereas English Muffins are bread. We had them with vegan cream cheese and jam.

Linda went for a walk after breakfast. I checked e-mail and corresponded with Brenda Phelan and Gary Hatt regarding a possible article for BCM on Bill and Brenda’s EMT/ambulance mobile workshop truck conversion. I then settled in to upload blog posts for mid-November, starting with the one for the 13th, and worked on that task until time lunchtime.

For lunch Linda used whole wheat pita pockets to make sandwiches with vegan deli slices, vegan cheese, and lots of arugula. We had red grapes and sweet-hot-garlic pickle slices to go with our sandwiches. After lunch we went for a short walk. Linda had a letter to mail and while we were at the mail room we took pictures of the cards listing sites for sale.

Back at our rig, Linda marked the sites on our resort map so we could check them out on one of our future walks. I continued uploading blog posts and Linda decided to go swimming. I was going to walk over at 3 PM to join her but I got a phone call from Bill Gerrie at 2:45 PM and was on the phone with him for about an hour.

Bill and Karen live in Limehouse, Ontario and are members of our FMCA GLCC chapter and the CCO group. We talked about buses and rallies, of course, and a little bit about politics and food/health. He and Karen are planning on attending the FMCA GLAMA rally (GLAMARAMA) in June along with Joe and Mia Temples and another couple who live near them. Mike and Kathy will not be coming, however, as Mike is not well.

Linda called to see if I was coming to the pool but it was too late in the day by that point. I finished uploading the blog post for November 17 and then got ready for the official resort happy hour.

Friday’s at 5 PM is FGMCR Happy Hour at the clubhouse; BYOB and a dish to share. Linda uncorked and then stoppered our bottle of Moscato and packed it along with two of our polycarbonate wine glasses, a container of caramelized onion hummus, and our container of Snyder’s sourdough pretzel nibblers. We put on our FMCA National Education Committee name badges and I grabbed my RVillage Ambassador hat and we started walking to the clubhouse. We got as far as Bill and Joan’s rig just as they were backing out. They offered us a lift and we accepted.

The happy hour turned out to be more of a “carry in” (pot luck) and the only thing we could eat, besides the stuff we brought, was fruit salad. Even so, we had our fill. We had not tried the caramelized onion hummus before. It was very good and reminded me of the California dip we used to make with Lipton onion soup mix. We sat with Bill and Joan and two other couples; Artie and Carol from Rochester Hills, Michigan, and Bob and Sandy from Valparaiso, Indiana. After we were done eating one of the residents provided some comic entertainment. Apparently entertainment is not usually part of the happy hour event. We would not be regulars if it was.

Like the Wednesday morning “coffee” at Big Tree Carefree RV Resort in Arcadia, the happy hour was not what I was expecting and did not give us a chance to mingle and meet people other than the folks at our table. Happy hour was over by 6:15 PM and many of us returned to our coaches while some stuck around to play poker or hand-in-foot.

Back at our rig I checked the inside of the driver side tag axle wheel for signs of an oil leak by looking under the coach between the passenger side drive axle and tag axle tires with a flashlight. The wheel appeared to me to be dry and there was no sign of oil on the concrete.

Since we did not have a lot to eat at happy hour Linda made a simple mixed fruit salad for us. There wasn’t anything on TV that interested us, at least not on the stations we could receive at FGMCR. We ended up watching a fundraiser presentation on PBS/Create about heart health that included food and fitness. Most of the doctor’s advice about food was already known to us and some of it we disagreed with, based on what we have learned from Dr. Michael Greger at NutritionFacts.org, but we did find the five markers of metabolic syndrome interesting. We were also reminded (confirmed) about the role of “white carbs” (simple sugars and highly processed carbohydrates like flours) in elevating triglycerides and cholesterol and contributing to the formation of plaque in the blood. I was going to make popcorn, but after watching this program it did not feel right, somehow, and we went to bed popcornless.

2015/07/06 (M) Arrested

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Our morning started with coffee, once we got up, and then granola for breakfast. We are both in better health, generally, than we were in our 30s, 40s, and early 50s, but having Madeline here requires a different kind of constant energy and attention and we are somewhat tired by the time her parents take her home. It’s a good tired, of course, but we were still tired this morning and slept in for a while.

I had hoped to get back to work on the bus today but the afternoon highs were forecast for the mid-80’s which would make for less than comfortable working conditions. The forecast for the rest of the week was for highs in the 70’s so I decided to wait another day. I really needed to get back to work on the bus but I also had other things to take care of that seemed at least as pressing.

At the top of my list was the SLAARC website. Scott Neader had successfully copied the SLAARC WordPress website from GoDaddy.com to QTH.com and changed the domain pointers to point to the QTH servers. He needed me to check that everything was working correctly. He was also preparing to transfer the domain name registration and needed my involvement for that process.

Part of our home ham radio shack with the new Yaesu FTM-400 2m/70cm mobile radio shown lower left.

Continuing with the ham radio theme, I needed to resolve how I was going to mount the new Diamond X-300NA 2m/70cm antenna and possibly remount the outside omnidirectional antenna for the cellular booster system. That meant doing some minor engineering and possibly ordering parts. I was also preoccupied with the fact that I was unable to participate in the SLAARC info net last night, apparently due to some malfunction in our ham radio system, and it was going to bug me until I figured it out.

Last, but not least, was the fact that I was now one month behind on uploading posts to our blog. The farther behind I get the more of a chore it is to get caught up. Like cleaning up my e-mail inboxes, which I also need to do, it finally becomes “the” thing I “have” to take care of before I can concentrate on any other work. I hate it when that happens, but it is a recurring problem and I have no one to blame except myself.

I often seem to spend the first part of each morning finishing up my blog post (draft) for the previous day and outlining the one for the current day or making notes for future days. It’s my way of reflecting on what I have done and thinking ahead to what I need/want to do next. By the time I actually got to work this morning it was after 10 AM and Keith showed up to cut the grass. It did not rain this past week and he was finally able to cut the grass at the west end of the property, which is low and often wet.

Before going to my office I checked the rebate paperwork which Linda had assembled for the new Yaesu ham radio and got it ready to mail. I also started filling out the prescription form to send in to Catamaran Home Delivery when I realized the doctor had written the Rx for 30 days instead of 90. I called the clinic and they said it would (probably) be OK to have Linda bring it to her appointment tomorrow and have the doctor rewrite it.

Our coaxial cable adapter kit.

When I finally got to my office I looked at the SLAARC WordPress website on my computer to make sure everything was working. The only thing that was not working was an online tool for logging check-ins for the Sunday evening info net. I e-mailed Scott about that and then logged in as an administrator and updated several plugins. I logged in to the FMCA-GLCC website and updated it and then did the same for our personal website. I then created a support ticket at iPower.com regarding the broken FMCA Freethinkers website. I dealt with SLAARC related e-mails throughout the day.

I spent the rest of the morning editing blog posts for the second half of June and early July and then started selecting and processing photos to use with blog posts, and processed those further. By the time I quit working I had photos ready for everything except the three days of the ARRL Field Day event.

It was a nice day, if a bit warm, and we had the house opened up including the basement doorwall. Other than a short break for lunch by 2 PM I had sat long enough and decided to setup the new Diamond X-300 2m/70cm antenna on a temporary pole. I rummaged around the garage and found the four section pole I had used at the old house. The pieces were buried under a pile of GLCC related PVC flag pole sections but I was able to slide them out. I cleaned up the swaged connections and used a light coating of anti-seize compound before assembling them. I stood it upright on the ground at the NE corner of the deck and zip tied it to the corner post at three points. I then set up the 7-foot step ladder on the deck and removed the upper two sections.

The new Diamond X-300NA VHF/UHF ham radio antenna is visible atop the pole at the corner of the deck.

I unbolted the X-300 antenna from its storage place on the side of the 40-foot tower and set the base on the east deck railing. I then got one of the 35-foot heliac coax cables from the basement and attached it to the feed point of the antenna. With Linda’s assistance I mounted the antenna to the top of the topmost mast section and zip tied the coax to the mast. Back up on the ladder I was able to slip the upper mast sections into the lower mast sections and add a couple more zip ties to secure the coax.

I routed the coax over to the cable entry box (CEB) so that it was not visible. The antenna is shielded from view by our Norway Crimson King Maple tree and the mast is very inconspicuous; not bad for a temporary installation. I disconnected the X-50 antenna coax from the Morgan UHF/VHF Lightning Arrestor in the CEB and attached the coax from the X-300 in its place. I went back to the ham shack, turned on the Yaesu radio, and listened. Nothing. I tried calling the South Lyon 2m repeater but nothing came back. I tied the Novi 440 MHz repeater…nothing. I turned the radio off and moved the coax to our Icom IC-7000 radio and repeated the tests. Same results. Something was clearly wrong so I called Mike (W8XH) to see if he could help me figure it out.

Mike was out but on his way back home and called me when he was back at his base station. We verified the transmit and receive squelch settings on my radios and then tested both antennas on both radios. Using our cell phones we confirmed that he was not hearing my transmissions and I was not hearing his, either direct (simplex) or through the repeaters. It was now clear that RF signals were not making it into or out of my system and there was one component that was common to all configurations; the Morgan M-302N VHF/UHF Lightning Arrestor.

I have a coaxial cable adapter kit that allows me to temporarily interconnect most of the connectors used in amateur radio coaxial cables. At Mike’s suggestion I used the kit to assemble an adapter (barrel connector) with N-female connections on both ends. I then disconnected the antenna and radio coaxial cables from the lightning arrestor and connected the radio coax directly to the X-300 antenna coax. Back in the ham shack I tested this configuration with both radios on both repeaters. I was receiving both repeaters with S7 to S9 signal strength, which is good, and very little noise, which is also good. Mike reported that my signal was very strong into both repeaters and that he was receiving me full-quieting. I shut the radios off and then switched the connection in the cable entry box to the X-50 antenna. We repeated the tests with the same results, confirming that the problem as the lightning arrestor and only the lightning arrestor.

The current status of the cable entry box.

Although I was disappointed that the M-302N was defective I was overjoyed, or at least relieved, that everything else was working perfectly. Although the new X-300 antenna turned out not to be “necessary” having it on a mast above the tower will give us an even better transmit and receive capability than the current X-50 installation. I even have some hope of being able to reach repeaters farther away in the Detroit metro area as well as in the Lansing, Flint, Ann Arbor, and Ypsilanti areas, and perhaps much farther beyond. Windsor (Canada) and Kalamazoo are possible when atmospheric conditions are right for longer range propagation, and the Saginaw, Mt. Pleasant, Fort Wayne (Indiana), and even Cleveland (Ohio) areas are not out of the question. Once, at the old house, I was on the Spirit of 76 repeater atop the Renaissance Center in Detroit when it picked up a 2m station from Iowa.

Relieved of my concerns, especially about the operation of our new radio, I returned to my computer-based tasks. The first thing I did was e-mail Chris Perri at KF7P Metalwerks regarding the lightning arrestor, which I purchased from him as part of the cable entry box. He apparently forwarded my e-mail to Morgan Manufacturing Inc., or at least e-mailed them, as I got an e-mail from Bob at Morgan with instructions on where to return the unit. It has a lifetime warranty and he indicated they would repair or replace it as needed.

I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening, except for dinner, working on photos. Dinner was chickpea salad on a bed of greens with steamed baby bok choy dressed in rice vinegar. It was a perfect meal for a warm summer evening.

The humidity had been up all day and rose as the temperatures dropped at sunset, although they did not drop much. Linda was watching an episode of Scorpion when I finally came upstairs. We watched an episode of NCIS Los Angeles after that and then an episode of Two and a Half Men, which I have always enjoyed. We turned on a small fan but it was a warm, uncomfortable evening for sleeping. For whatever reason we did not turn on the air-conditioner although in hindsight we should have.

2015/06/29 (M) Website On The Air

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Linda was up at 5:55 AM this morning and left for the bakery at 6:15. Experience has shown that this is usually early enough to get ahead of the morning rush hour traffic inbound to the Detroit metro area from the northwest.

I got up about an hour later, had granola for breakfast, and enjoyed my morning coffee (Sweet Seattle Dreams half-caff blend from Teeko’s) and then made a run to Lowe’s to purchase a couple of copper ground lugs and 5 feet of #10 green ground wire. Back home I tried to use one of the ground lugs to terminate the ground wire from the cable entry box (CEB) to the 36″ ground bar on the wall behind the ham radio desks but it’s shape prevented the wing nut from going onto the stud.

I planned to use the other lug to attach one end of the #10 wire to the ground bar and put a male spade lug on the other end to mate with the connector on the Go Box ground pigtail, but that clearly was not going to work. I dressed the ground wire and (temporary) coax in the ham shack and put the ceiling tile back in place. I then started cleaning up the living room and small bedroom per Linda’s request before she left this morning. Some of our (my) projects have a way of expanding throughout the whole house. I had hoped to also pick up the coax cables spread out in the recreation room, and at least start to straighten up the ham shack/office, putting materials away and moving tools to the garage.

At 10 AM I made a few phone calls. The first was to Rick Short at ISRI USA regarding the 6860 bus driver’s seat and a possible visit tomorrow morning. I got his voice mail (again) and never got a return call (again) so I gave up on getting any assistance from him or from ISRI USA. I called Linda to make sure she did not have any commitments on Wednesday and then called Josh at Coach Supply Direct to set up a visit to his shop for Wednesday late morning. Linda and I plan to finalize our Flexsteel furniture order and give Josh the deposit during that visit. Next I called Scott Adams, AC8IL, at Adams Electronics and ordered a 20 foot length of LMR-400 with an N-male connector on one end and a PL-259 connector on the other end. Scotty and I also chatted briefly about tower bases.

I e-mailed Scott Neader at QST.com regarding the transfer of the SLAARC domain name and website from GoDaddy to QST.com and got a reply back right away with an outline of the steps I needed to follow. First on the list was creating an account for our ham radio club through his billing system. I took care of that and e-mailed him back.

Keith Kish, from Kish Lawn, care showed up around 11 AM to cut the grass. When he was done I headed back to Lowe’s to look for an alternate ground clamp and pulley support for the tower but did not find anything suitable. So as not to have it be a wasted trip I bought three more bags of broken brick pieces to use around the tower base and cable entry box.

I spent some time looking at the Yaesu FTM-400DR/DE on several different ham radio equipment vendor websites. Yaesu is offering a $100 rebate on this 2m/440 mobile radio through tomorrow. All of the distributors are selling it for the same price, $599.95 and the rebate brings it down to $499.95, so if I buy one it will come down to who has them in stock and is offering free shipping.

Linda got home from the bakery around 3 PM, earlier than I expected and nice for her. She went for a walk while I continued to fuss with ham radio and website stuff.

For dinner Linda made a white beans and mustard greens dish. We eat a lot of lettuce, kale, and spinach, both raw and cooked into dishes, but only occasionally have collard greens or mustard greens. Mustard greens have a very strong, bitter flavor and I liked them more than Linda did. I think they are an acquired taste and may be more suitable as an accent ingredient rather than a main one.

After dinner I checked my e-mail and had a reply from Scott at QTH.com. The QTH SLAARC account invoice was ready so I paid it using a personal credit card. I then moved the coax from our Icom IC-7000 to Mike’s Icom IC-2820H and turned it on. Mike was on the South Lyon repeater discussing the Field Day event with Steve (N8AR) and Bruce (W8RA). Paul (N8BHT) was able to join the conversation but I was not successful breaking in so I just listened. It was an indication that my power into the repeater was probably still marginal but a good reminder that ham radio conversations are very public.

When they were done I called for Mike and he came back. We had a good QSO (chat) about the Yaesu FTM-400. Jim (N8KUE) joined in for a while. After Jim dropped off we tested my ability to transmit to, and receive from, both the South Lyon 2m and Novi 70cm repeaters. The added power of the IC-2820H over my IC-7000 (50W vs 35W in the 70cm band) combined with the lower signal loss of the better coax made just enough difference that I could hold the Novi repeater when transmitting although my signal was still on top of a lot of noise coming back out of the repeater.

Linda wanted to watch an episode of Scorpion, followed by NCIS Los Angeles, after which I caught an episode of Two and a Half Men and then turned off the TV. I will have to make a decision about the Yaesu FTM-400 in the morning.

2015/06/27 (S) ARRL Field Day

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At 5 AM I was vaguely aware of the sound of rain. The cats were chasing each other through the house so I got up to make sure nothing was amiss, such as another mouse. They were just having a bout of morning friskiness. I added a little food up to their bowls, which drew their attention, and went back to bed.

My Amateur Radio vanity license plate. There were a LOT of these in the parking lot at the SLAARC Field Day site.

I finally woke up and got up about 8:15 AM and got dressed in a suitable manner for today’s American Radio Relay League (ARRL) Field Day event. The temperature was in the mid-50s, overcast and raining with blustery winds; not exactly the nice summer day we were all hoping for. Some of the members of the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC) were gathering for breakfast at the usual place (Senate Coney Island) at the usual time (8 AM) but we obviously did not join them today.

I went to my office to retrieve my Sony DSLR and decided to turn on our Icom IC-7000 ham radio. I had it tuned to the SLAARC (K8VJ) repeater in South Lyon when Keith, KD8YYJ, announced his presence. He was driving from the west side of Howell to Wixom and seeing what repeaters he could hit. We chatted for 10 to 15 minutes and I invited him to stop by the SLAARC Field Day site at the South Lyon Township James F. Atchison Memorial Park.

I worked all day yesterday as part of the SLAARC Field Day setup crew. There was more setup to do starting at 9 AM this morning but the setup mostly involved radios, computers, Wi-Fi networking, and power. I was not in any humor to rush off into the clammy weather conditions, and Linda was up by this point, so we had breakfast. She found some Silk brand ‘yogurt’ at Meijer’s last week so we had that. It was OK. It is a creamy style yogurt, which is not my preference, but it was tasty enough. Bananas, cinnamon raisin bread, and juice rounded out the meal. Linda even made the coffee. I turned on the natural gas fireplace to ward off the chill in the living room where we lingered and enjoyed our morning brew.

The SLAARC Field Day operating stations use wirelessly networked computers (left) running N1MM Logger+ to record the contacts that are made. HF transceiver to the right.

I finally left for the Field Day site around 11 AM. The operating event started at 2 PM but the first of four meals was lunch today at noon and I wanted to capture photos of the rest of the setup and the lunch event. It was raining lightly when I arrived and continued to rain until I left at 2:15 PM. In between arrival and departure I took some photos and helped out a little bit, but there were plenty of people there taking care of what needed to be done.

Mike (W8XH) brought his Icom IC-2820H dual band mobile radio and several lengths of 50 ohm coax and we transferred those to my car. He then walked me through the various menus and functions his new Yaesu FTM-400DR/DE radio, a dual band (VHF/UHF) 50 Watt rig with digital voice capability and a color touch screen display. A group of SLAARC members recently purchased a Yaesu DR-1X repeater that works with the new Yaesu digital voice and data modes in addition to the traditional FM mode and are testing it as a replacement for the current, and very old, K8VJ repeater.

Mike’s IC-2820H is available for $350 but the FTM-400DR has a $100 rebate through the end of June, bringing the price down to $500. As much as I would like to have a VHF/UHF radio in my car I am looking at one of these radios to install in the cockpit of the bus so we can use it going down the road. The long-term plan is to put the Icom IC-7000 HF/VHF/UHF radio in our towed vehicle and get the Hi-Q 80-6 antenna mounted and operational in addition to the Diamond SG-7900 VHF/UHF antenna that is already on the Honda Element.

For base station use I would like to get an Elecraft K3s or Flex SDR rig. The K3s has become the rig of choice among the members of the SLAARC who are serious about working HF and contesting. Either of those are radios that could be fairly easily moved from the house to the bus when we travel. Antenna options in the bus could include running coax to the Hi-Q on the toad and/or a “flagpole” HF vertical that is mounted using the towbar receiver or a base stand that goes under one of the tires. An antenna switch would allow the use of the VHF/UHF antenna that was already installed for the cockpit radio. All of these “base station” options would obviously be for stationary use only.

[Photo 3 – HC]

The ARRL FIeld Day event showcases the ability of amateur radio operators to set up equipment in the field on short notice and keep it on the air for 24 hours, no matter what. The weather turned bad for the event. The portable generator is under the tent in the right foreground.

I uncoiled the coax cables that Mike lent me to see how long they were. There was a 5 foot piece that was too short for what I needed, and a piece that was approximately 40 feet, which was longer than I needed. The third piece was at least as long as the 40 footer. I “tagged” his coax with small white cable ties so I could identify them later and return them to him.

I did not want to mess around switching coax cables in the rain so I unboxed Mike’s Icom 2820 and got it set up to use with my existing antenna and transmission lines. I spent a little time with the manual and then powered it up. It was already configured from when Mike used it in his ham shack so I did not need to do any setup to use it. I monitored both the South Lyon 2m and Novi 440 MHz repeaters and was able to “hear” both of them, although the South Lyon signal was much better (stronger, quieter, clearer) than the Novi. A couple of SLAARC members were on the South Lyon repeater taking care of Field Day business. I waited a suitable amount of time after they were done and called for Mike (W8XH) and he came back right away.

We repeated the testing we had done last night. The performance with the 2m South Lyon repeater seemed to be much better but the performance on the 70cm Novi repeater was the same or worse with a fading component to the noise. I think we were on the air 15 to 20 minutes. Based on the test results from last night and this afternoon I think I have two separate issues that are probably interacting; the IC-7000 needs to be grounded and the 25 feet of coax from the cable entry box (CEB) to the radio (Go Box) needs to be shorter and much higher quality. I need to install the ground bar on the wall behind the ham radio desks and then purchase a suitable length of ground wire and run it from the CEB to the copper ground bar. I will also need to get a 15 foot length of 50 ohm LMR-400 coax from Scott (AC8IL) with an N-male connector on one end and a PL-259 connector on the other end.

Linda prepared our dinner at 5 PM. She made corn-on-the-cob and “cowgirl steaks,” a new (to us) vegetable protein product she found at Meijer’s. After dinner we drove back to the SLAARC Field Day site to socialize with club members at dinnertime. The weather at our house was still rainy with light-to-moderate winds and occasional stronger gusts. We arrived at the Field Day site to find a flurry of activity and strong, steady winds out of the north with continued sporadic rain.

Jim (KC8WMW) stays dry as he works the GOTA (Get On The Air) station in one of the tents.

The small red tent that was originally supposed to be the VHF tent was nowhere to be seen and at least eight people were engaged in trying to control and fold up the large canopy that the club purchased yesterday at Costco to serve as the combined VHF and GOTA tent. We quickly learned that the small tent, which was not being used, had collapsed and the large tent, which was unoccupied but full of radios and computers, had come unstaked and blown over in the wind. Those who were not helping with the equipment canopy were gathered in the food canopy. I pitched in on the equipment canopy rescue and Linda took the camera and joined the folks in the food tent.

After gathering up all of the pieces of the canopy and getting them back in the trailer some of the team added extra ropes and stakes to the windward end of the food canopy and both the 20m and 40m tents. Another part of the team, including me, got Marty’s (KB8JIU) satellite tracking equipment out of the screen room, which had been draped with solid plastic tarps to keep the rain out, and then took the room down, disassembled the legs, folded it up, and stuffed it in the trailer. The red tent was stuffed under a picnic table that was in the screen room so I grabbed that and put it in the trailer. The support pole for one end of our off-center-fed dipoles was bending over to the south more than we liked. Steve, N8AR, tied a rope around the existing rope, which was inline with the antenna and being used to keep it taught. He slid the second rope up the first one as far as he could get it to go and then pulled it out to the northwest (the antenna was oriented east-west with the tension rope running east off of the east end). He pulled it out until the support pole was reasonably vertical and I staked it down.

The winds really howled out of the north driving the rain before them. This shelter (from Costco) did not survive along with another tent and a screen room.

So the bad news was that some of our Field Day setup had not survived the weather which had not even reached severe conditions. The good news was that our generator was still producing power, all of our towers and antennas were intact and functional, we had our two key stations on the air, and our food canopy was full of people and hot food. Not the Field Day everyone had hoped for, but a great opportunity for teamwork and camaraderie and a learning experience to be sure, even if it was not the kind of lesson we wanted to learn.

We left around 7:30 PM and went to the New Hudson Lowe’s, which was very close to our Field Day site, where I bought 18 feet of AWG 6 stranded copper wire with a green sheath. As soon as the weather improves I plan to run this from the CEB to the ham shack and use it to connect the ground bar in the shack to the copper backplane (ground plane) in the CEB. I will then connect the ground on our Go Box (Icom IC-7000) to the ground bar and see if it helps with my noise issue.

Back at the house Linda wanted to watch an episode of NCIS Los Angeles, which we can now do thanks to our new OTA TV antenna. We then watched an episode of Christina Cooks, Christina Perillo’s vegan cooking show from a decade ago. These are still relevant and useful episodes and we especially enjoy them having seen and met her and her husband Robert on our two Taste of Health Holistic Holiday at Sea vegan cruises. Linda read and I wrote for a while before lights out and off to sleep.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2015/04/21-25 (T-S) IN, MI, Home

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2015/04/21 (T) Back to Twelve Mile, IN

The outside air temperature dropped into the 30’s (F) last night and the air temperature in the coach fell to 60, so when I got up this morning I turned on the Aqua-Hot diesel-fired hydronic heating system to take the chill off. We eventually got up, got dressed, and walked across to Small Town Brew to get a couple of cups of coffee and chat with owner Lisa Paul and her friend/neighbor, Ashley, who helps her run the coffee shop. Both of them remembered both of us, which was nice.

It’s interesting sitting in a small town coffee shop, where everyone is a friend or relative, and just listening to the conversation. We are outsiders her, of course, strangers to most of the folks who drop in, but everyone is nice to us. Some are curious about who we are, and where we are from, but rarely ask why we are there, in this little coffee shop in this little town, surrounded by corn fields. Of course, we usually mention that we are friends of Butch and Fonda, so that probably answers whatever questions they may have had.

We eventually returned to our coach and had breakfast. We tried connecting our WiFiRanger to Butch and Fonda’s Wi-Fi router yesterday and it was able to connect and obtain an IP address but the data transfer rate was so slow that web pages would not load and e-mail would not download before timing out. I turned our Verizon Mi-Fi on and we had a very weak but usable signal, so I connected the WFR to the Mi-Fi and we were able to do the few things we needed to do online. We then went in the house to let Butch and Fonda know we were awake and see what they were up to.

Butch’s brother, John, and his nephew, Brock, showed up and helped Butch with the driver side front wheel assembly on Butch and Fonda’s MC-9 bus. The tire/wheel was off when we arrived yesterday and I learned that Butch is replacing the hub bearings and seals, installing an automatic slack adjuster for the brake, and replacing the brake pads. It looked like quite a job with some large, heavy parts, so I did my part by staying out of the way. I also took a few pictures at Butch’s suggestion. He does not want to write articles for Bus Conversion Magazine, but he has been interested in having me write articles about projects on his bus.

Linda spent some time working with Fonda’s new sewing machine that she got while they were in Quartzsite, Arizona. It is a little smaller than a regular sewing machine, only weighs 13 pounds, and only cost about $130. Linda gave her sewing machine to her sister many years ago but now that she is retired she is thinking that it might be nice to have one for mending tasks or projects, such as new privacy curtains for the bus.

Butch got a catalog recently from Crimp Supply in Royal Oak, Michigan, which is not at far from our house. I glanced through it last night and it contains a lot of specialized parts that would be useful to a ham radio hobbyist or someone converting a bus into a motorhome. I called and requested a catalog and had a nice chat with Debbie. She was willing to provide me with additional catalogs that I can give to members of GLCC and CCO at the Back-to-the-Bricks and/or Surplus & Salvage per allies in August and September respectively. She was also willing to show up in person and give a brief presentation on her company and hand out the catalogs. Cool.

Brock had to leave after which Butch and John decided to go to the shooting range along with a third guy whose name I did not get. I went along to see the range and watch what they were doing. Butch had home-brewed some shotgun shells for his Ruger revolver and wanted to test them. They caused the revolving chamber to jam so they will require some additional work. John had a new semi-automatic pistol and wanted to see how it handled. He also had ammunition he had loaded with bullets he had cast and wanted to test fire them.

I was offered the opportunity to shoot but declined. I have never handled a pistol and it would have been a waste of good ammunition. I did take a class in rifle marksmanship while I was at the University of Missouri – Columbia many years ago. I was in the Air Force R.O.T.C. Program at the time and thought I should know something about how to handle a firearm. Learning to handle a pistol correctly would have been more relevant, but I do not recall a course being offered for that. I bought a Ruger 10-22 rifle at that time, and I still have it. It’s a .22 caliber semi-automatic rifle designed to look like an M-1 carbine and features a 10-round rotary clip that is flush to the bottom of the stock when inserted. I was only interested in shooting at paper targets so I added a scope to it. It is safely tucked away with a trigger lock on it, but I have not fired it in many, many years. I should probably bring it to Twelve Mile the next time we come down, let Butch inspect and clean it properly, and take it to the range just for grins and giggles.

John and the other guy went back to Logansport from the range. When Butch and I got back to the house he continued working on the driver side front wheel of their bus. I helped a little, but mostly by taking photographs for a possible future article. After putting tools and parts away we sat and relaxed for a while and then all of us went to Logansport for dinner at Pizza Hut. It was 8:45 PM by the time we got back so everyone said “good night” and turned in for the evening.

2015/04/22 (W) Chillin’ in Twelve Mile

Yesterday looked and felt more like winter than spring with gray, cloudy skies and blustery, cold winds. The temperature overnight dropped into the mid-30s but we were toasty warm under blankets with our electric heating pad turned on. I got up at 7:30 AM and turned on the thermostats. The temperature in the kitchen was reading 63 degrees F but the temperature by the dashboard was only 53. The Aqua-Hot has performed very well since I rebuilt the blower bearings and quickly brought the temperature in the coach up to 70 degrees F.

We put on our sweats and walked over to Small Town Brew for coffee and conversation with owner Lisa Paul and whomever else might be there. Three local guys were enjoying their morning brew when we arrived. They eventually left and were replaced by others. Most of the patrons seemed to be retired or semi-retired farmers. One fellow, Lee, chatted with us at length about a canvas covered hoop barn he put up. It was constructed using laminated wood hoops rather than steel, was 30′ wide by 70′ long and cost about $4,000 15 years ago, although I was not clear whether that included the 4-foot high poured concrete walls. He already owned concrete forms and the heavy equipment that one finds on farms, so he was able to do a lot of the work himself without renting equipment or hiring contractors. Still, it has to be the lowest cost way to create a structure for getting our bus out of the weather and out of sight. It is unknown, however, whether the Township and County would let us to put it up.

Butch left at 8:30 AM for medical appointments in Logansport and Fonda came over at 10:45 AM to gather up Linda for a girl’s day out. Linda wanted to go to McClure’s Apple Orchard on US-31 between IN-16 and US-24. Although it is very close to Twelve Mile Fonda had never been there. They were then headed to Peru. Although it is the same distance from Twelve Mile as Logansport and Rochester it is the city that Butch and Fonda visit the least. Peru’s claim to fame is that it was the birthplace of Cole Porter and Emmet Kelly and was the winter home of several circuses many, many years ago. I believe there is a circus museum there that Nick Russell wrote about in the Gypsy Journal.

With no bus project or social interactions I settled in to work on my blog and await everyone’s return. It started out sunny this morning but by 11 AM was thickly clouded over and looking wintery with blustery winds. The only bus project I had in mind to do today was to pull out the chassis batter tray, check the circuit breakers, disconnect the batteries, swap the upper 12 V pair with the lower 12 V pair and reconnect them. It was not something I wanted to do alone and I did not have to do it today, especially under cool, windy, overcast conditions, so I ended up not doing it.

Linda and Fonda eventually returned, having first gone to the Walmart in Logansport. Linda picked up some hummus and Snyder’s sourdough pretzels so we snacked on those for lunch. Linda then hung out with Fonda while I continued to work in blog posts. Butch finally returned from his medical appointments and busied himself with something. Whatever it was, he was not outside working on their bus and neither was I. I managed to get the post for April 1 – 3, 2015 uploaded to our blog.

Linda and Fonda developed a plan for dinner. Fonda made a nice salad and baked a loaf of par-baked bread that we got from Marilyn. Linda made black beans and rice and prepared a mix of fresh blueberries and strawberries for dessert. Linda and I each had a glass of Franzia Red Sangria. After taking all of dirty serving containers back to our coach we returned to the house to visit a bit longer and finally returned to our coach just after 9 PM. That left me enough time to pull together the posts for April 4 – 6 and upload it before turning in for the night.

2015/04/23 (R) Return to Michigan

I was awake at 6:30 AM and finally got up at 7 and put on my sweats. The Aqua-Hot was already on so I turned up the thermostats and turned on the engine pre-heat loop. I also turned on the Broan cube heater and pointed it into the cockpit as the temperature on the dashboard was only 50 degrees F. I walked over to Small Town Brew, got a cup of coffee, and said “so long for now” to owner Lisa Paul. Linda was still asleep when I got back so I fixed a couple slices of toast for my breakfast, turned on our Verizon Mi-Fi, and settled in to take care of a few e-mails. Linda finally got up and, as I suspected, had not slept well last night. She had some toast and orange juice but had no interest in coffee, a strong indicator of just how tired she was and not feeling completely well.

When she was done with the toaster I turned the cube heater off and turned the electric block heater on. The overnight low temperature was forecast to drop into the upper 20’s and starting the big Detroit Diesel at that temperature is hard on the engine so I wanted it nice and warm before I cranked it over.

Butch had an appointment with an ophthalmologist in Indianapolis around noon and had some other things to do down that way as long as they were there so he and Fonda planned to leave by 9 AM. He came to our bus just before 9 AM to let us know they were close to leaving and that he put an air hose out by the automotive bay so I could fill the front tires on the bus if needed. Based on the readings from our TireTraker TPMS, however, no adjustment was needed.

We planned to leave sometime after they did but not later than 10 AM. The main reason for not leaving sooner was to give us time to digest our breakfast, but the other reason was our relatively short drive today to Camp Turkeyville, an RV park on I-69 just north of I-94. This will be the first time I have been in Michigan, which I certainly consider home, since we left on November 30, 2014. Turkeyville is only 80 miles from our house, but we will have a full hookup site so we can dump our waste tanks tomorrow morning and not need to use them on the final short drive to the house.

We started getting ready to leave around 9:45 AM. I shut off the block heater, put Butch’s air hose away, and then took care of the chassis batteries, auxiliary air, and shorepower. The DD fired right up and I switched it to high idle while it built air pressure. As soon as the chassis was at ride height and the air dryer purged I pulled onto IN-16 pointing eastbound and pulled into the curb/parking lane. That was around 10 AM. I left the engine idling while Linda pulled the car up behind the bus. By the time we hooked up the car for towing, checked the lights, and pulled away it was closer to 10:20. I noted that the time was 10:30 AM EDT as we pulled onto US-31 N from IN-16 E.

Traffic was light and we had an easy run up US-31 to US-20 except for the 15-20 MPH crosswind from the WNW. I also had a very cold breeze blowing into the cockpit by my feet and had to turn the heat up to stay comfortable. We were an hour into our trip when I finally realized that I had not opened the air supply valve for the shutters on the two front house air-conditioner condensers which are installed in what is normally the spare tire bay. Those shutters are held open by a spring and held closed by air pressure. When they are open air can easily find its way into the cockpit. There is also a mechanical damper that is supposed to regulate fresh air flow to the cockpit, or cut it off completely, but the flexible actuator cable broke some time ago and the damper/cable are difficult to access so it has not been repaired. Either the cable broke with the damper in the closed position or I taped some sort of cover over the air inlet once upon a time because once I closed the shutters for the A-C compressors I no longer had cold air coming in by my feet.

Traffic was heavier on US-20 eastbound but it always is as it runs just south of South Bend and Elkhart, Indiana, and a bit north of Goshen. It is still a limited access highway until east of Elkhart, so it moved along up to that point. There was one stretch between there and Middlebury where major construction was taking place, but we got through that easily enough. After that it was a nice, rolling, 2-lane highway and we rolled along at 55 MPH except for the occasional town on intersection. We always enjoy driving through this part of Indiana.

We turned off of US-20 onto I-69 N, crossed into Michigan at 12:53 PM EDT, and pulled into the Michigan Welcome Center five minutes later. We only had 37 more miles to our destination but we both needed a short stretch break and I wanted to open the air valve for the A-C shutters, which is in the bay under the driver’s seat. We resumed our trip and exited I-69 at exit 42 around 1:45 PM, crossed over the highway, and traveled the 500 yards to the Camp Turkeyville entrance. We followed the long, wide, winding entrance road and stopped at the office where Linda got us registered. They put us in a 50A full hookup pull-through site with easy access that was long enough for us to leave the car hooked up for towing.

We went through our usual arrival routine and then Linda fixed a light lunch of French Country Vegetable Soup and a tofu hotdog on pita bread with mustard and relish. She also made a pot of coffee. We connected our WiFiRanger to the RV Park Wi-Fi system but did not seem to be able to move any data so we turned on our Verizon Mi-Fi and connected the WFR to it.

Linda spent the afternoon reading a book on her iPad and I mostly worked on my blog post for April 7, 8, and 9. I had 14 photos for that post but inserted them into the post rather than put them in a WP image gallery. I logged into our personal WordPress site, installed WordPress 4.2, and then installed updates to plugins and themes. Once that was done I uploaded the blog post and uploaded/captioned/inserted the photos and generated the tags. I clicked the “Publish” button about 7:10 PM.

Linda put dinner on the table about 10 after I finished working. She made a nice tofu scramble, a dish that vaguely resembles scrambled eggs, and served it with toast and jam, a small glass of juice, and black seedless grapes.

I thought about working on my blog post for April 10th, as it is the last one for which I have photos, but I was too tired to get involved in that tonight. We pointed our front OTA TV towards Battle Creek and Kalamazoo, found the local CBS station, and watched a couple of episodes of The Big Bang Theory and whatever else was one. We caught some local weather and decided to enable the diesel burner on the Aqua-Hot, turn the thermostats on, and set the temperatures for 60 degrees F. The overnight low temperature was forecast to be 27 and it was already 29 when we went to bed. Welcome to Michigan in late April.

2015/04/24 (F) Touchdown

I awoke at 6:30 AM to an outside temperature of 27 degrees F. Our coach has several ways it can be heated if we are plugged into adequate electrical power, including three electric toe-kick heaters. I turned on the Aqua-Hot diesel burner and electric heating element last night before going to bed and left the living room and bathroom thermostats turned on with the temperature dialed back to just under 60 degrees. I also turned on the Broan cube heater, dialed back the thermostat, and set in on the step to blow into the cockpit.

I got up at 7:15 AM and put on my sweats. It was 60 degrees F on the kitchen counter, but the refrigerator adds some heat mid-coach. The thermometer on the dashboard read 53. I turned the thermostats up to 68 and turned on the Aqua-Hot engine preheat loop. I also turned on the front electric toe-kick heater. I made coffee and then turned on the electric block heater for the engine. I checked e-mail and monitored our amperage while I waited for the coach to warm up and for Linda to get up. We were drawing about 30 A on Leg 1 and 20 A on Leg 2. On a true “50 A” RV electrical service with a main circuit breaker that functions correctly we can safely draw 40 Amps on each leg, so our usage was not going to trip any breakers.

By 10 AM the temperature was up to 40 degrees, the sun was shining, and it’s was delightfully cozy in the rig. I got a call from Michele Henry at Phoenix Paint in response to an e-mail I sent her yesterday and talked to her for 15 minutes. We had planned on a 10:30 AM departure but by the time I connected the sewer hose, dumped the waste tanks, and put the hose away it was 10:45. We had the bus and car ready to travel by 11AM and pulled out of our site. We had to wait for a few minutes until someone moved a 5th wheel which they had temporarily parked in the middle of a two-way road while waiting to get into their site. We finally made our way out of Camp Turkeyville and pulled onto I-69 N at 11:13 AM.

We had an easy run to our house and our wheels “touched down” on our driveway at 12:45 PM. Even the dirt roads for the last two miles of our trip were in reasonably good shape, which made for a nicer homecoming. We opened the house, put the cats in their carriers, and took them inside. I got the bus plugged in and the air shut off while Linda put the batteries back in the water softener and sanitizer and turned the well pump on. I turned the gas back on for the kitchen and fireplace and then set all of the thermostats up to 65 degrees F. We unloaded a few things from the bus and then had lunch, after which I sent text messages to both of our children and to Chuck Spera to let them know we were home.

After lunch we unhooked the car from the bus and continued unloading the bus but did not get everything taken off. I was tired and took a long nap, only getting up when Linda told me it was time for dinner. We had a Daiya Mushroom and Garlic pizza. We have used Daiya vegan cheese for a while but did not know they made pizza products until we saw them at the Dierbergs Market in Edwardsville, Illinois. It had a thin, crispy, rice flour crust (gluten-free), lots of garlic and cheese (of course), and was very tasty. I wish we could buy them near our house.

After dinner I called Butch to let him know we made it home safe and without any new or reoccurring bus issues. He had reassembled the driver side steer wheel and discovered that the new brake drums he got from MCI some time ago are the wrong ones, so he is going to have to track down the correct ones next week.

2015/04/25 (S) Return to Regular

Do you remember when OTA TV stations used to break in to programs with special news bulletins or emergency alert tests? At the conclusion of such interruptions the announcer would say “we now return you to your regular programming.” Having spent most of 61 years living in stationary dwellings we still consider being back at our house to be the baseline for our regular lives. The last two years, however, we have spent half of the year, more or less, living in our converted motorcoach. That fact, combined with the fact that we moved to a new-to-us house just before we started our extended traveling, has altered our perception of what constitutes “regular.” All we know for sure is that living this dual lifestyle is our new normal and we like it.

Whether living at home or in the bus we have routines. Part of our “at home” routine is Saturday morning breakfast with our friends from the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC) and that is how we started our day. We took our usual route to South Lyon and were surprised by the extent of the construction work at the I-96 and US-23 interchange. We knew this interchange was scheduled to be rebuilt starting this year but as of March 1st, when Linda last drove through there, work had not started. A lot has happened since then, and from the look of things this is going to be a BIG project.

There were a LOT of people at breakfast, 24 by Linda’s count. It was good to see our friends and ease back into ham radio talk. The club president, Harvey Carter (AC8NO), had the personalized club jackets we ordered from Sunset Sportswear in South Lyon over the winter so we got those from him after we were all done eating. The jackets are dark blue with fleece lining and yellow embroidery that looks very sharp. The left breast says “South Lyon Area” on top and “Amateur Radio Club” underneath. On the right breast is our first name (in script) on top and our call sign underneath in block letters.

We stopped at Barnes and Noble on the way home to pick up a gift for grand-daughter Katie and found two books that we thought would interest her. One was on rocks and gems and the other was on snakes, both of which are interesting to Katie. Both are also an integral part of the desert southwest where we spent the winter.

When we got home I set about the tasks of moving various pieces of technology from the entrance foyer to my basement ham shack/office, reconnecting it to power and our network, and starting it up. I started up our Linux box but the video driver would not “catch” so I shut it down and restarted it in Windows 2000 Pro, updated the es|et nod32 anti-virus database, and installed three Microsoft updates. I checked e-mail on my primary laptop, responded to a couple, and then installed updates on all of the websites I manage. WordPress just released version 4.2 and each new release triggers a flurry of plug-in and theme updates.

Our daughter, Meghan, had arranged for us to come over mid-afternoon to visit and have dinner without the bother and fuss of fixing a big meal. Minn, the female cat, hid immediately but Inches, the male cat, hung around for a while. Grand-daughter Katie is working at Pizza House in Ann Arbor where he dad, Chris, has been the general manager for a long time, but she got off work and arrived just after us followed by Chris, who had run out to pick up dinner at Seva.

Our son, Brendan, daughter-in-law Shawna, and grand-daughter Madeline showed up a little later, and Inches promptly disappeared. Madeline is very sweet and interacts with her two kitties, Gus and Iggy, just fine but our cats, and Meghan’s/Chris’s cats, disappear whenever she comes to visit. They are just not used to the size, motions, and sounds of a 28 month old.

Seva is a vegetarian restaurant that has been a staple of the Ann Arbor restaurant scene for many years but recently moved out of downtown to a location on the far west side of Ann Arbor. While not just around the corner from Chris and Meghan’s house it is much closer, and easier to get to, than driving into downtown. Many of their menu items are vegan, or can be made vegan, and that is mostly what they ordered. We had a nice visit with excellent appetizers and main dishes, a dozen choices in all, and a nice Riesling wine from Washington State.

After appetizers we distributed the gifts we had picked up for everyone. Besides Katie’s books Madeline got a “Dr. Seuss” book about deserts and a t-shirt from Marilyn with a design on the front that changes color in the sunlight. Both of our children, who kept an eye on our house for us over the winter and took in our mail, got the following: A bottle of Red Chile Wine from St. Clair Winery in Deming, New Mexico; a bouquet of pequin chiles from Hatch Chile Sales in Hatch, New Mexico; a box of Prickly Pear Cactus jellied candies and a jar of Prickly Pear Cactus jelly from Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona; a bag of Green Chile Pistachios from Eagle Ranch (Heart of the Desert) in Alamogordo, New Mexico; a two box set of olive oil and peach balsamic vinegar glaze from Queen Creek Olive Mill in Queen Creek, Arizona; and a non-stick grilling mat from the “Big Tent” RV Show in Quartzsite, Arizona. We appreciate what they do when we are away which would be more complicated for us without their assistance.

We enjoy looking for gifts that are unique to the areas we visit and tend to limit ourselves to items that are consumable so no one has to find room to store or display something, at least not for very long. We saw many wonderful art and craft objects this winter but they present a special challenge beyond simply getting them home. We are no longer collecting “things,” as we already cannot display or store the stuff we have, and our children are in somewhat the same situation (which is why we still have a lot of stuff instead of them having it).

Then there is the matter of taste. Both children have their own taste in art and have carefully arranged items for display on their walls and shelves. As much as we might like something, and think someone else might like it, buying art for other people is fraught with peril because there is an implied expectation that it will be displayed. If it is displayed but the recipient does do not like it then the gift is intrusive. If it is not displayed the giver is disappointed and potentially offended. Better to stay clear of all that by avoiding surprise gifts. The exception is if we know they are looking for something in particular and we come across one. In that case it is a simple matter to take a photo with one of our smartphones and message them to see if they want it, making it clear that “no” is an acceptable answer.

Madeline goes to bed at 8 PM so she left (with her parents) at 7 PM. Both Minn and Inches came out shortly thereafter to have a bite to eat and get the attention they had missed for the last four hours, We stuck around for another hour which gave us just enough time to get home before it got really dark. Brendan and Shawna had kept/used Linda’s Honda Civic all winter. They came in two cars and went home in one so that Linda could get the Civic back to our house. There is a chance that she will have to go into the bakery a day or two this week and I do not like be without transportation, especially when we have a lot going on.

We sat in the living room for an hour reading and relaxing with our favorite iPad apps/games but without the benefit of our natural gas fireplace logs. I lit them when we got home and they operated for about 60 seconds and then shut off and would not relight. I turned the pilot flame off and will deal with that tomorrow. I went to bed, read for a while longer, and then went to sleep.

20150416-20 (R-M) MO, IL, IN

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2015/04/16 (R) Carthage, MO to Edwardsville, IL

[Note: There are no photos for these posts.]

I was awakened from a light sleep this morning by a change in the sound of our auxiliary air compressor and the pneumatic systems on the bus. A valve that whines in a certain way as the system fills with air changed its tune and the compressor ran longer than it normally does and did not shut off. I got up, turned it off, turned it back on and it finally completed its cycle and shut off automatically. At that point I was up and wide awake so I got dressed. Linda was awake by that point too so I suggested that we just get an early start on today’s journey, and that is what we did. We pulled out of our site at the Coachlight RV Park at 7:30 AM and a few minutes later we were headed south on I-49. Less than a mile later we looped around the cloverleaf interchange onto I-44 headed east.

The sky was overcast and we ran in and out of fog and mist as we traveled up and down the rolling hills of southwest Missouri with spring in full bloom. The temperature was cool and the conditions made for easier driving than having a bright morning sun in my eyes. Traffic was light to moderate for the first 2/3rds of the trip, albeit heavier passing through Springfield and Rolla. About 200 miles into our trip we stopped at the Flying J at exit 226. I-44 was now six lanes and we were at the fringe of heavier urban traffic and encountered a center lane closure on a bridge which brought traffic to a halt. We patiently worked our way through that and a little farther along exited I-44 onto I-270 which became I-255 and took us across the mighty Mississippi River into Illinois, most of the St. Louis, Missouri metropolitan area to our north.

Once we crossed the river and traveled a few miles traffic thinned out but we bumped our way along as the road surface on this stretch of I-255 was very rough. We exited I-255 onto I-55N/I-70E and then stayed with I-55 when it split from I-70. It was a good thing, too, as I-70E was backed up all the way to the split with traffic stopped and a sign announcing long delays and advising motorists to seek an alternate route. A few more miles and we were at our exit for IL-143, crossed over the highway, did a 180 onto the service road, and drove the last mile to the entrance to the Red BaRn RendezVous RV Park just east of Edwardsville, Illinois.

The entrance to the RV Park was a bit narrow but wide enough that I was able to swing in off the service road. The interior gravel roads were also narrow, and I had to snake past the office, but they turned out to be just wide enough to accommodate an RV our size. The office was closed but there was a note on the door with our name and site number. The site had trees on either side that did not appear to be trimmed up high enough but it turned out that they were.

While not a destination park Red BaRn RendezVous is a nice little place in a location convenient to Edwardsville and Glen Carbon, Illinois, where Linda’s sister lives, and the Interstate highways that will get us to my sister’s house in 30 to 40 minutes. The office building has men’s and women’s restrooms with showers and a small but well equipped laundry. We had no commitments to visit anyone today and were in early enough that Linda gathered up the laundry and we carried it over to the laundry room.

Linda had some fresh blueberries that needed to be used so she made vegan blueberry pancakes for dinner. We do not have these very often but they are a real treat when we do. We were both tired and had headaches, unusual for me but not for Linda, and decided to drive into Edwardsville and find the Walmart. We wanted to buy a present for Lilly and it gave us a reason/place to stretch our legs. Back at the rig we located the OTA TV towers, oriented our front OTA TV antenna, and watched episodes of The Big Bang Theory while diddling on our iPads and computers. I hate to lose a block of potentially useful time but I was not up to working on photos and blog posts and diddling was the best I could manage.

The only “issue” we had with the bus today involved the behavior of the air system. There are three air pressure gauges in the cockpit—primary and secondary on the dashboard, and auxiliary to the side—corresponding to the three “systems” that operate the chassis (brakes and suspension), and accessories (belt tensioners, radiator shutters, air horns, step slides, and house components). The air from the main engine air compressor goes through a dryer that removes moisture and then goes to the primary, secondary, and auxiliary tanks. It sounds simple but it is a bit more complicated than that. I returned an earlier phone call from Butch and discussed this with him.

As best I understand it (and care to take time to explain it here) a valve, or set of valves, regulates where the compressed air goes and the top priority is the brakes. The primary tank/system supplies air to the rear brakes and the secondary tank/system provides air to the front brakes (or vice versa). Until the air requirements of the brake systems are satisfied air does not flow to the suspension or accessories. Once all of the systems are pressurized they are isolated from one another so that a failure of any component will not affect the other systems. It is a clever, fault-tolerant design that works well and has stood the test of time. The components are used on 18-wheelers, fire trucks, and all manner of heavy highway equipment, including commercial buses in passenger service.

When the system is working correctly this is what I normally see when driving. When the systems are fully pressurized the primary, secondary, and auxiliary air pressure gauges all read ~130 PSI. The primary and secondary gauges will stay at that pressure unless/until I apply the brakes. The auxiliary gauge, however, will drop over time due to small leaks somewhere that I have not been able to isolate. Once the pressure in any of the systems drops to about 90 PSI, which is almost always the auxiliary system, the main engine air compressor kicks in and brings the pressure in all of the systems back up to ~130 PSI.

What I saw for most of the drive today was different, and that is always a cause for concern and makes driving less enjoyable. All three gauges were showing a loss of pressure and the pressure in all three systems was the same. The compressor was still working and would kick in at ~90 PSI and bring all three back up to ~130 PSI, so that was good, but the behavior suggested that one or more isolation valves had “stuck” in a position that kept all three systems tied together, which was not good. Because of the larger volume of air being lost through the leak(s) in the auxiliary system it took a lot longer for the pressure to bleed down and it took longer for the compressor to bring it back up.

About four hours into our six hour trip we stopped for fuel at the Flying J Truck Stop at exit 226. When we resumed our travel I noticed that one of the gauges (primary or secondary, not sure which) was holding its pressure while the other one continued to drop along with the auxiliary gauge. An hour after that I noticed that both the primary and secondary gauges were holding pressure while the auxiliary gauge was cycling, and this behavior continued for the rest of the trip. Thus it appeared that whatever caused the abnormal behavior had self-corrected. My suspicion is that a stuck valve had gotten unstuck. Once we were parked and set up the auxiliary air compressor cycled on and off properly, confirming that the isolation valve(s) was(were) once again working correctly.

2015/04/17 (F) My Side

We were up between 7:00 and 7:30 AM, not because we had to be but because we were rested and awake. We had a quiet, relaxed morning enjoying our coffee and granola and using our iPads to check on the world (L) and work on yesterday’s blog post (me). We configured the bus to ensure the cats’ comfort while we were away and left at 10:30 AM to drive to my sister’s house in Bridgeton, Missouri. We stopped for fuel just short of her house and finally arrived around 11:30 AM.

We were greeted by Patty and Maggie, her one remaining dog. We visited for an hour and then went to a Panera (St. Louis Bread Company) not far from her house for lunch. We returned to her house to continue our visit and await the arrival of Ryan, Amanda, and Lilly, who showed up a little after 3 PM. They would have come earlier but Ryan had a routine work-related physical on which his continued employment depended. To everyone’s relief he passed so everyone was relaxed. Lilly was initially surprised to see us but immediately gave us a big smile and went to Linda’s outstretched arms. Lilly is 27 months old and is a cheerful, happy child who interacts easily with whomever is around.

Ryan and Amanda were hungry so at 4:30 PM we headed to El Maguey Mexican Restaurant for dinner. We had taco salads with beans instead of animal protein and everyone seemed to like their food. It is Amanda and Ryan’s favorite Mexican restaurant. Amanda and Ryan headed home with Lilly and we drove back to Patty’s house to wrap up our visit while we waited for rush hour traffic to subside.

Brendan called and Linda got to “chat” with Madeline and then each of us took turns talking to him. He had received his offer letter from Eastern Michigan University and acknowledged it, so he will start his tenure track assistant professorship in the art history department in September. The discussions about initial course assignments, however, have already started. He also mentioned that Shawna’s application for tenure at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor is looking very positive. Both of those pieces of information were very good news for us.

We took our leave at 7:30 PM and got back to our coach just before darkness settled in. Having spent a long day enjoying the company of family we settled in to watch a few shows on the local PBS station’s Create sub-channel before turning in for the night.

2015/04/18 (S) LF-M-LH Day 1

Yesterday Linda (LF) talked to Marilyn (M) briefly as we (B & LF) were driving back to the rig from Patty’s house and they (LF & M) agreed that we (LF & B) would arrive at Linda H’s (LH) house around 11 AM tomorrow, which is now today. (Hopefully the LF and LH designations will help keep straight which Linda I am referring to. Most of the rest of this post is about today not yesterday.)

We were up this morning at 7 AM and had our usual coffee and granola. It’s a good thing we will be getting home soon because we only have one day’s supply left of LF’s homemade granola. It is so good that we have stopped buying commercial granolas because they do not have any taste by comparison.

After a suitably relaxing start to our day I continued plugging away at editing blog posts and selecting/processing photographs to go with them. I dealt with some e-mails and then we gathered up our stuff and headed to (LH’s) and Marilyn’s house in Glen Carbon, Illinois. Glen Carbon and Edwardsville flow together to form a contiguous urban area but they are distinct municipalities with Glen Carbon being to the south of Edwardsville.

We are camped just to the east edge of Edwardsville on the edge of a corn field. The RV park is conveniently located to I-55 and just 10 minutes from LH and M’s house so we were there by 11:15 AM. LH and M had purchased various fresh ingredients for a salad and after sitting and visiting for a while Marilyn assembled the salad. There was something going on at the house across the street that resulted in the wife calling the police and three cars/officers being dispatched to the scene. LH said the husband was himself involved in law enforcement so that added a certain tension to the whole situation as he almost certainly had firearms in the house.

We spent the rest of the afternoon chatting until Marilyn had to leave for a gala fundraiser for a school that her Congregation supports. We decided to continue visiting with LH and stay for dinner. LH had a bag of shredded vegan mozzarella “cheese” so we ordered a mushroom and onion no-cheese pizza from Imo’s and she ordered a medium supreme. I drove into town and picked up the pizzas. When I got back we added the vegan cheese to ours and heated it in the oven long enough to melt it. It was very good.

In recent times Imo’s was our favorite pizza (after the demise of the Luigi’s restaurants in the St. Louis area many years ago) but the last time we tried one without cheese it was not very satisfying. The crust is thin and crisps nicely, the way we like it, and the sauce is slightly sweet and used sparingly, the way we like it, but their normal cheese, a mozzarella and provolone mix, is (apparently) what pulls together the pie’s uniquely fabulous taste. While the vegan mozzarella was not an exact replacement it made for a very tasty meal, bringing both taste and texture to the pizza.

We needed to do some grocery shopping so we took our leave at 7:30 PM and drove to the Dierbergs supermarket in Edwardsville. There are three grocery stores at the intersection of IL-159 and Governors Parkway, but Dierbergs was the most likely to have what we were looking for. Our shopping done we headed east on Governors’ Parkway almost to I-55 and took the service road back to our RV park. We gave our cats the attention they were seeking while Linda (LF) settled in with her e-book and I worked on the blog post for our two-day visit to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. I also proofread the final draft of the March 2015 issue of Bus Conversion Magazine and sent back my corrections. I uploaded the blog post and then went to bed to work on the posts for yesterday and today.

2015/04/19 (N) LF-M-LH Day 2

Linda (LF) was up at 6:30 AM, earlier than usual, and I got up at 6:50 AM. Before I had a chance to start making our morning coffee she pulled up the weather and showed me the radar. Rain had been forecast to start just after midnight, and continue all day today and into tomorrow, but it appeared that it had not rained last night. The radar, however, indicated that the rain was on our southern doorstep. I needed to dump our holding tanks and refill our fresh water tank, so I took care of that while Linda made the coffee and updated her cost-of-camping spreadsheet.

The dump and fill process took me about an hour but we now have enough waste tank capacity and fresh water onboard to get us home with room to spare. Based on Linda’s data our average nightly cost to “camp” this winter has been about $8.75. Not bad. Our average daily cost for our winter in Florida was over $20 which we felt was a very reasonable cost for wintering there. We drove more miles this winter compared to last, almost double in fact, so we spent the money we saved on camping buying diesel fuel. Fortunately diesel fuel prices in the central and western states where much lower than the prices in the southeast last year. They were, in fact, the lowest prices we have seen in years so that was a nice break.

I updated my water usage spreadsheet while Linda got caught up on our personal accounting and bills. Cell phones and cellular data, in conjunction with the Internet and electronic banking, have fundamentally transformed the full-time and extended-time RVing experience in ways that no one could have imagined 15 years ago. I had an e-mail from Dropbox that Kate had joined a folder I had shared with her so I sent her a short e-mail updating her on our travel plans. I also had an e-mail with the final draft of the print version of the March 2015 issue of BCM and verified that the corrections I uploaded last night had been made to my article. I consolidated my blog posts for March 22 and 23 and finished editing them. I had just started looking at the unprocessed photos for those posts when it was time to pack up and head to Marilyn and Linda’s (LH) house for the day.

The weather was overcast and gloomy and the rains eventually came, a perfect day to stay inside and eat, talk, and play games. Marilyn has been making a real attempt at moving to a vegan diet so she prepared tomato soup and black bean burgers for lunch. We then put the leaf in the dining room table and got out the Mexican Train dominoes game. We brought hummus and Linda (LH) had made vegan guacamole so we enjoyed those with a few Fritos corn chips. We also had fresh grapes and toasted almonds to munch on and a couple of bowls of popcorn. We played 16 rounds of Mexican Train starting with the double 15 tile in the center and ending with the double “zero” (blank) in the center. It was evening by the time we finished and everyone enjoyed having a whole day to hang out with family and friends with nothing more important to do than play a game.

We left just before 8 PM and drove through Edwardsville to get back to the RV Park rather than get on the Interstates. There was very little on TV that interested us and we ended up watching an episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. It was a very popular show in its day but is now very dated to the point of being almost silly.

Linda (LF) read and I selected/processed photos for my blog post about our visits to Ajo, Arizona on March 22nd and 23rd. I got the post and photos uploaded and then went to bed.

2015/04/20 (M) Edwardsville, IL to Twelve Mile, IN

Linda was up a little before 7 AM and I was up a little after. Today was a travel day, so we did not make coffee or have breakfast. We were not hungry anyway having had our fill of food, both good and junk, yesterday. We each had a cup of tea while we got our day started.

We started getting ready to leave around 9 AM and finally pulled out of the Red BaRn RendezVous RV Park at 9:50 AM. We had about 330 miles to travel to get from Edwardsville, Illinois to Twelve Mile, Indiana. Since the RV park is just off of I-55 we took I-55 north to I-72 near Springfield, followed that east to I-57 and then took that north to US-24. We followed US-24 east and moved from Central Daylight Time to Eastern Daylight Time sometime after we crossed into Indiana. US-24 joined up with US-35 to bypass Logansport, Indiana to its south and then split off to continue east towards Peru. We picked up US-31 just before Peru and took that north to IN-16 where we headed back west about five miles to Twelve Mile. It was 5 PM (EDT) when we arrived at Butch and Fonda Williams’ place. The bus ran well except for a couple of tattletale lights that started blinking briefly towards the end of the trip. The previous problem with the chassis air systems did not reoccur.

I checked the manual after we got parked and one of the lights was for a chassis battery voltage Hi/Low condition and the other was for the upper and lower 12 V strands of the chassis battery being out-of-balance. Both conditions, if true, might implicate the Vanner battery equalizer but the first diagnostic step will be to check the circuit breakers. The next step will be to check all of the battery connections, including the Vanner. One of the things on my To-Do list is to swap the upper and lower batteries as the “24V” gauge on the dashboard usually reads 29 V and the “12V” gauge usually reads 14 V or slightly less if I have the headlights turned on.

Butch and Fonda had to take his parents to medical appointments in Lafayette, Indiana today and got home just before we arrived. We did not realize they were there but that was OK; they knew we were coming and we have a nice level spot to park on concrete with a “50 A” electrical connection when we are here. (It’s a 240 VAC connection with a 50 A RV outlet but we can only draw about 30 amps on each leg.) Even though we left home on November 30, 2014 Twelve Mile feels like the place where our trip to the southwest U.S. began as we left from here in a caravan with Butch and Fonda on December 3rd.

We were settled in our spot and had our WiFiRanger connected to their Wi-Fi access point when Butch and Fonda either realized we were there, or that we were not going to knock on their door, and came over and knocked on ours instead. They came in our bus and we talked for over an hour at which point Butch needed to deal with a Facebook group admin issue. After they returned to the house Linda started preparing our dinner while I checked e-mail and then continued working on this blog post.

Linda sautéed onions, mushrooms, and garlic in a little olive oil and added torn spinach at the end. She cooked two baking potatoes in the microwave oven and served them with the sautéed vegetables as a topping along with some almond milk jalapeño pepper jack vegan cheese. A simple but satisfying dish on a cool, clammy evening. We also had some black grapes with the meal which were tasty and refreshing. We made two large cups of hot tea and took them to the house where we visited with Butch and Fonda some more. By 10 PM we were too tired to be good company so we returned to our coach and went to bed.

2015/03/04-05 (W-R) RVillage Stopover

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2015/03/04 (W) RVillage World Headquarters

World Headquarters of the RVillage Social Network and residence of founder/CEO Curtis Coleman.

We pulled into the driveway yesterday of the house that currently serves as the World Headquarters of RVillage and home of the founder/CEO Curtis Coleman. Forrest and Mary Clark were already here and Randy Sturrock and Marianne Edwards, who run Boondockers Welcome, arrived about 20 minutes after we did.

Augie doggie strolling on the sidewalk by the lake.

We were not in a rush to get up this morning, made coffee once we did, and enjoyed the lovely grounds and the view of the lake. Curtis had work to do, some of which involved Randy and Marianne, so we visited with Forrest and Mary and just relaxed and read or worked on our iPads and computers.

RVillage founder/CEO Curtis Coleman at work on his patio office.

By lunchtime Forrest and Mary had left, followed by Randy and Marianne. Not long after that Dave and Vicki McKenna arrived. They handle membership for the Escapees RV Club SKP Boomers BOF, so it was nice to finally meet them. We all had a nice chat with Curtis and then left him to work.

Forrest and Mary Clark visiting with Augie by their Foretravel motorhome.

The five of us went to dinner at Duffers, the bar/grill/restaurant at the local golf course. Linda and I had nice garden salads with fresh ingredients and a basket of sweet potato fries. We sat and talked until we were the only folks left in the restaurant. We took the conversation back to the house and continued it there much later into the evening than is normal for us.

2015/03/05 (R) Prince of Tucson

Linda holds Augie for a beauty shot.

We spent the morning visiting with Curtis Coleman (RVillage) and Dave McKenna (SKP Boomers BOF) and then started getting ready to leave. We turned the bus around, hitched up the car, and finally pulled out around 1 PM. We had a relatively short drive of just over 50 miles to get to the RV Park in Tucson where we had a reservation.

Marianne Edwards and Randy Sturrock with Linda (holding Augie).

RVillage is run by Curtis, and Curtis runs on coffee. 🙂

We had an easy run with good access to the RV Park. Tucson is not a kingdom, and it does not have royalty, but it does have a street named “Prince” and it has an RV Park at the end of that street by I-10 named Prince of Tucson RV Resort. The park was clean and attractive enough and there were some aspects of the park that were better than usual, especially the road leading in and the check-in lanes. It was right up against a retaining wall for the entrance ramp to eastbound I-10 which we thought might be a noise problem, but it wasn’t. The pull-through spots, which are intended for overnight guests, were very narrow, but they had full hookup 50 Amp service and were easy to pull out of when leaving, so they served their purpose.

Lou and Val Petkus were going to stay at Prince of Tucson but changed their plans and stayed at a Passport America park just on the other side of I-10 from us. We called to let them know we were in and see if they wanted to go to dinner. They were both tired and settled in so they took a pass on dinner. We needed groceries so we unhooked the car and drove to a Whole Foods Market about 8 miles away and stocked up on some items that are difficult to find elsewhere.

Forrest Clark and Marianne Edwards talking on the lawn at RVillage WHQ.

Back at the rig we got the groceries put away. We then scanned for TV stations and found some!!! We could not receive OTA TV in Quartzsite and were not able to pick up any stations in Arizona City, either.

Linda, Curtis, and Dave McKenna discussing details of RVillage.

2014/12/13-16 (S-T) In Q

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2014/12/13 (S) Ahhhh

Linda was very tired last night and was asleep by 10 PM. Although I was up until almost midnight we were both wide awake by 5:30 AM, so I got up and made a full pot of coffee. We enjoyed our brew while watching the slow but inevitable progression of night to day. It was very quiet last night; the only sounds I was aware of were the noises the coach makes (refrigerator and auxiliary air-compressor). The rain last night was gentle and a somewhat rare event for this area at this time of year, so Linda got online with her iPad to check historical weather data and forecasts.

The average rainfall for Quartzsite in December is 0.07 inches, the maximum is 0.7 inches (10 times as much) and the minimum is zero. The average high is in the mid-60s and the average low is in the low-40s. On any given day the forecast is sunny with gentle winds and no fog or rain. January is slightly cooler on average and February warms back up a tad. You can see why people spend the winter months here. Sunrise was at 7:32 AM. We are ~20 miles from the California border, as far west as we can go without moving into the Pacific Time Zone, so sunrise and sunset are later here relative to the local time.

Linda made fresh blueberry vegan pancakes for breakfast with real maple syrup and they were excellent. After breakfast we got out the vacuum cleaner hose and attachments and vacuumed the coach. This terrified the cats, who have limited places to hide, but it had to be done. Linda then mopped the tile floor. She wanted to dust but I suggested the all the cleaning did not have to be done the first morning we were here. She bundled up the trash and took it to the large garbage can and stopped to chat with Fonda and Connie (our landlady) on the way.

Our motorcoach set up in its winter home in Quartzsite, Arizona.

By 8:30 the sun was climbing in the southeastern sky and the coach was warming up a bit. We are parked facing east so we decided to deploy the passenger side awnings (patio and bedroom) which shaded approximately 65% of the upper half of the south-facing side of the coach. Linda then decided we should wash the front of the coach.

I got the step stool and Little Giant ladder out of the front bay while Linda got the collapsible water bucket. We started with the front of the bus using water directly from the tap but it dried too quickly in the sun and left spots. We switched to softened water from our fresh water tank and took a team approach with me scrubbing using a Microfiber sponge and Linda following right behind drying with Microfiber cloths. That seemed to work better.

After we finished the front we moved to the rear. The sun had not yet pulled around to west of south so we did not have direct sunlight on the rear cap. We hooked up our longest hose to the other water softener outlet and then wet the surface, scrubbed the cap with our soft brush, and rinsed it off without using the Microfiber drying clothes. We will clean the two sides of the coach over the coming week, doing a little bit each day. We also deployed the awnings on the driver (north) side of bus just to unwind them and let them air out and dry. We then set out our patio mat and welcome mat and our two bag chairs, completing our cleaning work for the day.

Butch spent some time emptying out their Suburban so we could explore Quartzsite in one vehicle. We all had lunch and then headed off to explore our winter home town. Fonda wanted to locate a church where she could attend services on Sunday mornings so we found one that looked like it might suit her. We drove down Main Street and Kuehn Street checking out the vendors and ended up at Big Market on west Main Street where we bought some grocery items and postcards.

Back at the ranch we settled in for a while before dinner. I worked at my computer and started checking up on e-mail, which I had not done in several days. I had a few from Gary, the publisher of Bus Conversion Magazine, and replied to those. I also spent a little time in RVillage and updated our profile. Jim Liebherr (Joe’s brother) came around to collect the first month’s rent and clarified access to the laundry room.

View of our motorcoach looking NE from Lollipop Ln. There are mountains in the distance to right of the rig.

For dinner Linda made a green salad using spinach, Mandarin oranges, and walnuts with a raspberry walnut vinaigrette dressing. She then prepared a zoodle dish using a tool called a “SpiraLife” that spiral slices vegetables with or without cross-cutting them. The cross-cut mode turns carrots, zucchini, etc. into long slender strips like flat pasta. She spiral sliced a zucchini and used it instead of wheat pasta in an olive oil sauté with mushrooms, onions, garlic, spinach, and sun-dried tomatoes. Some vegan “Parmesan” cheese on top, bread on the side, and a glass of Pinot Noir to wash it down made for a wonderful, healthy meal.

Linda found information online that suggested we should have anywhere from 11 to 21 over-the-air (OTA) TV channels. The Huffington Post even had the complete programming schedule for Quartzsite by channel and time-of-day. Our TV sets normally scan for standard OTA channels, both analog (very few left) and digital. We used both the front and rear TV to repeatedly scan for signals, pointing our amplified directional antennas around an entire 360 degrees, but did not find a single station.

The TV sets can also scan for QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) signals. We had to obtain an Access Code from the Westinghouse support website and enter it into the front TV to get it to scan for QAM signals, but it did not find any of those either. I called Butch to see if they had tried tuning in any stations. They had tried and got the same results as us. It’s not a big deal, the only TV we watch at home is streamed over the Internet, but it was puzzling as we saw lots of TV antennas around town. Most of them, however, where on top of tall poles.

The overnight low was forecast to be 41 degrees F and by 9 PM it had cooled off in the coach quite a bit. I decided to shut my computer for the evening and head to bed where we have a dual control electric heating pad to keep each of us in our own comfort zone. As sometimes happens, Microsoft decided that my computer needed to be updated. This often turns out be a recursive experience and tonight was no exception. Five updates were initially downloaded and installed, requiring a restart of the computer. After it rebooted and finished starting up I tried to shut it off again and there were six more updates, requiring another restart. I checked again after it rebooted and finished starting up and it appeared to be done, but I decided to leave it on overnight in case additional updates wanted to make their presence known.

I turned up the temperature on my side of the electric heating pad, got cozy under lots of covers, wrote for a while, and turned off the lights. It was a good first full day in Q.

2014/12/14 (N) Parker, AZ

The temperature in our motorcoach dropped below 60 early in the morning and the Aqua-Hot bedroom zone pump and heat exchanger fans came on even though we did not have a heat source turned on. That was because I had failed to turn the thermostat off before going to bed last night. With a 50 Amp shorepower connection I would have turned the three electric toe-kick heaters on, but with our 30 Amp connection I turned on the diesel burner and the electric heating element. Twenty minutes later the coach was warming up and I turned the electric element off so Linda could start cooking breakfast.

Linda made a tofu scramble using a different recipe that did not call for nutritional yeast as she forgot to pack any. We had sourdough toast with strawberry jam to go with the scramble, grapefruit juice, and coffee. Always coffee. After breakfast Linda went for a walk while I stayed at the bus. When she got back from her walk and Fonda got back from Church we discussed driving to the Wal-Mart in Parker, Arizona for groceries and sundry items. Butch left seating for four people in their Suburban so after lunch, he drove all of us to Parker.

See the mountains? Quartzsite is surrounded by mountains!

What we saw of Parker looked like a nice little town. The Wal-Mart had a reasonable variety and quantity of fresh produce and we got most of the items on our shopping list. We noticed when pulling out that there was a Safeway supermarket across the street with a CVS Pharmacy next door. Parker is located on the Arizona side of the Colorado River and is the county seat for La Paz County which includes Quartzsite. It is also the location of the tribal headquarters for the Colorado River Indian Tribes, a consortium of tribes with reservations along both sides of the Colorado River for many miles north and south of Parker. The Bluewater Resort and Casino is one of the attractions in town.

Back at our winter home base we unloaded our groceries and then sat outside to read, write, and surf the web. It was cool in the shade and warm in sun. We chatted with Connie for a while and then retreated to our coach as the outside air temperature dropped. Linda had picked up a guide to the Lower Colorado River region while walking this morning so I settled in to read it. As it got dark Linda assembled our dinner. We had another nice salad, a bowl of the left-over curry, some bread, and finished the bottle of Pinot Noir. We read for a while after dinner and then went to bed.

2014/12/15 (M) Hard Water

The outside temperature dropped to 38 degrees F overnight, colder than at our house back in Michigan, but the high there won’t make it past 50, which is above average for this time of year, while the high here will be in the low 60s, which is normal. Add in the warmth of direct sunshine here and you typically have shirtsleeve weather.

I turned on the Aqua-Hot at 6:30 AM and went back to bed for half an hour while the coach warmed up. When I got up I put on the new sweatshirt and sweatpants that we bought yesterday and made a pot of coffee. We got the sweat clothing yesterday to wear in the coach while lounging around in the morning. I only brought a lightweight robe from home, and Linda only brought a lightweight nightshirt, both of which proved to be inadequate against the morning chill.

After breakfast we took showers and then called the Escapees RV Club to register for the Escapade rally and clarify the process for ordering clothing. I got transferred to Kim’s voice-mail and left my information. Rather than hang around the coach waiting for a return phone call we walked to “downtown” Quartzsite. Main Street is only 8/10ths of a mile straight south of our location and is only two miles long from Exit 19 to exit 17 of I-10. The city is basically four square miles (2×2)—with most of it north of I-10—and is flat terrain, so it’s a compact, easy place to get around on foot or bicycle.

Our first stop was the post office so Linda could mail a few postcards. There was quite a crowd there picking up and dropping off mail. From what we understand mail does not get delivered to street addresses here so everyone has a P. O. Box. UPS, however, does deliver to street addresses. We went next door to the Chamber of Commerce trailer and picked up a couple more maps and some flyers and booklets on area attractions. We also bought a pair of Quartzsite 2014-2015 Snowbird commemorative pins. We then walked to the west end of Main Street and wandered through the Main Event warehouse building. They sell all manner of inexpensive (cheap) Chinese tools but we did not buy anything on this visit.

Joe & Connie’s park model trailer as viewed through the cactus garden by our coach.

We crossed Main Street to the McDonalds, had some French fries, and used the restrooms. We did not see any signs for “public” restrooms on our walk today, so the fast food places and truck stops were important pedestrian waypoints. We headed back east on Main Street and stopped at Big Market to check out the hardware portion of the store. Butch went through it the other day and said it was surprisingly good given its size. Having now seen it for myself I have to agree with his assessment.

Most north-south roads in Q are Avenues while larger E-W roads are Streets. Studying the map we got from the Chamber of Commerce it appears that Avenues and Streets connect to other roads at each end and/or at intermediate points. Dead end roads are usually named Lanes, but a few are Roads, Drives, or Trails. There are only four Avenues that run all the way from Main Street to the north end of town. From east to west they are Plymouth Ave., Central Ave. (AZ-95), Moon Mtn. Ave., and Kofa Ave. Tyson’s Wash runs north-south between Central Ave. and Moon Mtn. Ave. Perhaps because of the wash, or perhaps for other reasons, there are only three streets that run all the way through from east to west. Tyson St. is essentially the north edge of town while Main St. and Kuehn St. parallel I-10 on the north and south side respectively.

We got back to our coach a little after 1 PM. Cool air temperatures and cloudy skies made it a less comfortable day to sit outside so we gathered up our soiled clothes and Linda took them over to the laundry room. Because this is private property, not a large commercial RV park, the laundry room is just that, a room with a standard residential washer and dryer. They are not coin operated so usage is on the honor system; $2 per load (washed and dried). We are keeping a log of the loads we do and will add the corresponding cost to our rent or electrical bill next month.

Linda sliced an apple, got out the hummus, and put out some baby carrots, pieces of cauliflower, and broccoli along with pita chips. As we finished our late lunch/snack I noticed that Butch was working in his engine bay. That meant he was probably doing something with the air-compressor so I went over to find out exactly what he was up to and see if I could be of any assistance. He was unbolting the compressor from the engine block so he could pull it away from the back of the engine and check the drive gears and spline. It turned out that I had several socket wrench related tools with me that he needed, so that was my contribution to the process.

Once he had the compressor unbolted and pulled away from the block he was able to determine that there wasn’t anything wrong with the drive gear on the end of the camshaft or with the free-floating spline. The Bakelite gear was also still intact and the compressor was not seized. Based on a conversation he had with Bill at U. S. Coach the only thing that appeared to be amiss was a missing spring. The purpose of the spring is to keep the Bakelite gear engaged with the spline. Lots of grease packed behind the Bakelite gear can have the same effect as the spring, at least for a while. Since Butch had already done some of the hardest work required to remove the compressor he was still leaning towards buying a rebuilt unit and installing it. The “engine” in their bus was newly rebuilt when they bought it, but all of the accessories that attach to it, including the air-compressor, were not.

We did not fill our fresh water tank when we dumped our waste water at the Dream Catcher SKP RV Park on Thursday morning. After five days of heavier use, including showers, it was nearing empty and needed to be refilled. We try to fill it with softened water whenever possible and then use the water from the tank. On the road it is via our portable water softener. This approach keeps the water in the tank from going stale and also allows us to track how many times we have run a tank’s worth of water (100 – 125 gallons) through the softener. The number of gallons we can soften depends on the hardness of the water. We tested the city water in Q when we got here and it is very hard. It probably comes from very deep wells.

I borrowed a test strip from Butch to check the hardness of the water coming out of our softener. To my dismay, it was the same as the water going in. In other words, the softener wasn’t doing anything. That meant I had to recharge (regenerate) it before I could use it to fill the fresh water tank. It was near sunset, which meant most this work was done the dark. Bad planning on my part, but there it is.

I like our little portable softener but have never been satisfied with the recharge procedure. I followed the directions but without much success and with what I thought was way too much wasted water. After unscrewing the filter housing on the softener inlet and removing the filter I filled the housing ~3/4s full with non-iodized table salt. I inserted the special plastic tube onto the outflow port inside the head and then worked the housing up and screwed it into place. I tried using a trickle flow and also full inlet water pressure with a constricted outlet flow. I checked every half hour for two hours, but most of the salt was still there.

The view to the SW from our patio. Just over those mountains is California!

The problem was obvious to me. When a filter is installed in the housing it is sealed at the top and bottom by a post (bottom) and the outlet port (top). Water flows into the housing around the outside of the filter, through the filter media, and up the hollow center of the filter and out the port. What I needed was a tube that was exactly the same inside diameter and length as a standard filter, so it would seal on both ends, but with holes near the bottom. This would force water, under pressure, to flow down through the salt, through the holes, and up through the tube and into the softener where it could restore the ion exchange capability of the resin media. I jury-rigged just such a solution by taking the old filter and drilling 1/4″ holes around the bottom. Not my best piece of work, but it finally got the job done. I plan to make a better, more permanent, version of this solution sometime soon.

When all of the salt had finally been dissolved and run through the softener I removed the modified filter from the housing, rinsed it out, and installed a new 5 micron filter cartridge. The housing was leaking and I thought it was the plastic NPT nipple so I released any residual pressures and unscrewed the filter head from the threaded pipe. I cleaned the old Teflon tape out of the threads, wrapped new tape around them, and screwed the filter housing head back on the nipple. Fonda had wandered over by this time and was holding the flashlight which was a great help. It turned out that the problem was a missing O-ring; it fell out of the housing when I dumped it out. By chance I was walking around the back of the bus (with a flashlight), where I had dumped out the housing, and spotted it on the ground. I cleaned it off, put it back in, re-installed the new 5 micron filter element into the housing, and screwed it back onto the head. Valves open; pressure good; no leaks; good to go.

I opened the valve to fill the fresh water tank and went inside for a while. It took about 30 minutes to fill the main tank because the 5 micron filter does not pass water as quickly as the 20 micron that was in there. There is also a “whole house” filter housing installed in the water bay. As best I can tell, all of the water entering the coach goes through that filter, whether directly to the plumbing or into the fresh water tank (which is filled by opening a valve plumbed into the main supply line to the house). What I need to do now is replace that filter cartridge with a carbon element that removes chlorine and other such things. We also have a 1 micron drinking/cooking water filter under the kitchen sink that removes five or six different things. By the time I turned off the water, closed all of the supply valves, and went inside it was 9:45 PM so I grabbed my iPad and headed to bed.

2014/12/16 (T) Shopping In Q

Connie asked me last night if we would help her load her car today and of course we agreed. Our “landlady” for the winter is a truly delightful person. She has limited mobility but gets around without complaint. She’s picking Joe up from the care facility on Wednesday afternoon and bringing him here so we will finally get to meet him in person. Their sons are driving down from their homes in Nevada on Friday after work and taking the whole family back on Saturday.

Linda went for her morning power walk and I started working on cleaning up my e-mail inboxes. While Linda was gone Connie indicated that she was ready to start loading her car so I took care of that task. It was not a big or heavy job, but was more than Connie could do. I was close to being done when Linda returned and Butch/Fonda emerged from their bus. We all stood around chatting for a while and Connie invited us in to see the park model trailer she and Joe live in when they are here. It was not large but was more spacious than either of our buses.

Butch and I headed into town while Fonda and Linda stayed in camp. Linda wanted to work on her cross-stitch project and Fonda had things to do. We stopped at the Tool Mart at the Main Event on the west end of Main Street and each picked up some odds and ends tools. We then drove across to the south side of I-10 and headed west in search of the home where Fonda wants to attend a women’s bible study group on Wednesdays. The house we were looking for was in a development on the other side of the first ridge of mountains that lie SW of Quartzite. We found the development and the house without difficulty. Both were nice but the location was a bit surreal; I mean this development was in the middle of nowhere surrounded by low mountains. Butch captured the location in his GPS so that Fonda could find her way here and back tomorrow.

We drove back into Q, staying on the south side of I-10, and checked out the various vendors. We spotted the M & T Enterprises RV water filter store and pulled in to park. We spent some time there talking to the owner. They were one of the vendors selling an OTA TV antenna and had one set up on top of a 20 foot pole. The unit had a built-in rotator, and they claimed they were able to get 21 channels, but they said all of the signals were coming from the NNE to NE. Other folks have told us that the only signals in town are from Yuma, 85 miles away in a S to SSW direction. That seems unlikely given the terrain.

We walked down a few booths to the east to K & B Tool. Among many other things they sell the aluminum tent poles that are being used to get the aforementioned TV antennas up in the air. Our final stop was at Discount Solar at the NE corner of Main Street and Plymouth Ave. Butch bought all of their solar equipment from Discount Solar some years ago and thinks highly of the owners and staff. We were treated most cordially and they took time to talk to both of us. Butch is considering buying some Full River AGM batteries from them and I was just curious about what they had.

We have two humingbird feeders in the cactus garden by our coach. Look carefully to the right of the feeder.

When we got back to camp I had some of the leftover curry for lunch with some hot tea to help me warm up. Heavy clouds set in over the course of the afternoon and the air temperature was cool enough that I got slightly chilled. In spite of the chill, Linda went outside to continue working on her cross-stitch project. Butch set up their two-burner propane stove and made candy as he wanted to give some to Joe and Connie as a gift before they left on Saturday. With all that work going on around me I decided to take a nap.

Linda made a black beans and rice dish for dinner along with a green salad, both of which were very tasty. We bought a box of Franzia Sangria at Big Market the other day and finally tried it this evening. As with most of the Franzia wines it was not outstanding but also not offensive. Among inexpensive wines the Red Guitar Sangria is much fruitier and I like it better. While I would prefer a better wine, the Franzia boxed wines are around $13 for 5 liters, fit nicely in the refrigerator, can be consumed over a long time (at least eight weeks), and minimize garbage and recycling. All of those are positive attributes when living in the motorhome. We had fresh strawberries later for dessert, which are always a treat.

Our son (Brendan) sent a TXT message with a picture of our grand-daughter (Madeline) and the ornaments she had hung on their Christmas tree. She put five of them in a group at her eye level. She will be two years old in two more days and is fully aware that special things are happening and that she is a full participant in them, if not the center of attention. After dinner I resumed the task of cleaning up e-mails. I always promise myself that I will do better at managing my e-mails, but I never do.

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.

2014/04/15 (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.

2013/12/26 (R) Our Recent Travels

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We left Williston Crossings RV Resort in Williston, Florida at 10:15 AM and traveled to the Turner Agri Civic Center in Arcadia Florida for the Arcadia (Bus’in) Rally 2014. Our route took us down US-27 to I-75 to FL-70 to US-17 and over to the rally venue, covering 200 miles in 3 hours and 45 minutes. I-75 had a lot of traffic and a few construction zones, but US-27 and FL-70 we excellent roads with very few vehicles. I have not been posting maps of our daily travels, so here is the route we have traveled starting on the 19^th. We have traveled about 1,300 miles in that time.

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We were met at the check in station by Bill and Brenda Phelan who now run the Arcadia Rally. Linda took care of the paperwork while I introduced myself, indicating that I had been asked by the publisher of Bus Conversions Magazine to do an article on the rally. We unhooked the car and were escorted to our back-in site. We immediately recognized the bus parked behind us as belonging to Bill and Karen Gerrie. They always travel with Karen’s sister Katherine and her husband Mike, and sure enough, they were here too! By the time the rally starts on Sunday we expect there to be other converted bus people here that we know.

We were escorted to our site, backed in, straightened out, and leveled and then went through our usual arrival routine; Linda setting up the inside while I hooked up the electrical shoreline and checked the house battery state of charge and that the inverter/charger was working. We then deployed the awnings.

While opening and securing the main patio awning the front rafter arm started to come off of the awning shaft. Closer inspection revealed that there was supposed to be a retaining pin or bolt holding these two pieces together, but it was missing. Yikes! I looked down and there was a black bolt of approximately the right diameter and length on ground in front of me. Was it possible that this had just fallen out? I looked at the other end of the roller tube and there was the matching part, but with a Nylok nut on the end. I went back to the other end and looked for the nut, but didn’t see it. It probably fell off a long time ago, if it was ever there in the first place. No one has worked on these awnings since they were installed by the Zip Dee Factory outside of Chicago, Illinois in October 2012. It would have been very, very bad if these two parts had separated while we were traveling on the highway.

I managed to get the bolt back through the mating holes, but I did not have a Nylok nut of the correct size in my parts kit. The Gerrie’s have a 1965 GMC bus that they converted. Bill is a very knowledgeable and resourceful guy when it comes to buses, but he did not have an 8-32 Nylok nut either. I did have some regular 8-32 nuts, however, so I double nutted the bolt and snugged it up nice and tight. We added 8-32 Nylok nuts to our growing list of supplies we needed to buy and things we need to do.

With that chore out of the way, we pulled up the chairs and settled in for a chat. I mentioned the Check Engine Light issue and erratic speedometer problem we’ve been having, and quick as a wink Bill had his ProLink/NexIQ engine diagnostic tool out, hooked up to our bus, and we were reading codes. The DDEC II engine computer did not have any active codes set and only one inactive code. The inactive code was for a fuel temperature sensor high voltage. Joe Cannarozzi (our mobile mechanic) and I had replaced the fuel temperature sensor back in the spring but I never got around to hooking up my ProLink and clearing the old code. That little oversight has caused me way too many anxious moments. My bad.

Bill also had a special card for his diagnostic equipment that allowed us to look at the error codes from the ATEC transmission computer. No codes were set, indicating that the vehicle speed sensor was sending a good signal at least as far as the transmission computer. We assumed that was the case as the transmission was working great and the cruise control was working as it always has. The erratic speedometer appears to be either a wiring problem between the computer and the dashboard or the speedometer gauge itself. The easiest/cheapest thing to do would be to clean the connectors on both ends. The next easiest thing would be to replace the speedometer and hope that’s the problem, but that will not be the least expensive solution if turns out not to be the gauge.

Although I had stopped worrying about the Check Engine Light, it was a great relief to know that there were no active error codes being generated by the engine or transmission computer. One of the great things about rallies in general, and converted bus rallies in particular, is that many converted bus owners have done their own conversions and have a special sense of community about their machines. They know their way around buses, travel with tools and parts, and are usually willing to help each other when there’s a problem.

With a potential awning disaster discovered and averted and the Check Engine Light issue resolve, we finally settled in to our chairs for a long, well-deserved, chat. While we were talking four Sandhill Cranes walked by about 50 feet away. These magnificent gray birds have a distinctive red cap on their heads, and can stand almost 4 feet tall. Although they tend to spend summers much farther north in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and Canada, we have them on our property in southern Michigan during the late spring to early winter. We also saw kildeer, and several other birds we did not recognize. On the drive down today we saw pelicans and egrets plus the usual raptors that can often be spotted along highways.

By 5:30 PM it was getting dark and mosquitoes started to appear so we wrapped up our conversation and headed inside for the night. With all of the activity and socializing we had managed to skip lunch. Rather than take an hour to prepare something, we had the chickpea salad Linda made the other day. It’s one of our favorite cold dishes and reminds us of egg salad.

Linda turned on the TV and scanned for channels. We are parked facing west with the front OTA TV antenna pointed slightly north of our nose. That’s somewhat in the direction of Tampa St. Petersburg although they are actually northwest of our location. The scanner found 60 digital stations, so she flipped through them to see what was there. We had the PBS trio, a weather station, the usual commercial offerings, and lots of Spanish language stations. Impressive really; if you look at a road atlas Arcadia is 40 miles east of I-75 and appears to be in the middle of huge swamp.

We could not find a usable Wi-Fi signal so we turned on our Verizon Mi-Fi device and got online. If you need to be online while traveling, you need to have more than one way to get there. (Technomadia has the definitive book on the subject for RVers.) We checked e-mail and I worked on this post. We took a few minutes to have vegan chocolate cake with fresh strawberries. We finished up our online work and went to bed early. Although the rally does not start until Sunday, I have to start acting like a reporter tomorrow so I can write a really good article on this event with lots of good photographs.

2013_12_22 (N) A Rainy Night In Georgia

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Not really; as it turned out the rain forecast for overnight never developed. But around 5:30 AM we got a blast of colder air, probably the downdraft from a thunderstorm, which was the first sign of the approaching frontal boundary. It started raining around 5:45 AM and rained heavily off and on from 6 AM on. The Weather Channel radar showed an unpleasantly large band of heavy rain just to our west stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to our southwest northeastward up the western side of the Appalachian Mountains into the mid-Atlantic states and beyond. The whole line was training from SW to NE while moving to the east, portending a long rain event in Cartersville, Georgia once it started. The southern edge of a severe thunderstorm watch box was just to our north, but we only had a little lightening no thunder. As route would take us south to southeast, there was a chance we could get ahead of the advancing storm line if got started early enough.

I had to unhook in the rain in order to get us on the road at 7 AM; not something I would normally choose to do, but it was OK. There is often an upside to most situations, and in this case there were two. One was that I finally got to use my new REI raincoat and rainpants, and I am happy to report that I finally have raingear that keeps the rain on the outside where it belongs. It was also an opportunity to test whether the leaks in our roof had been found and sealed. So far, so good. Indeed, we ran in and out of rain for most of the drive today, heavy at times, and no leaks appeared.

Besides trying to stay ahead of freezing temperatures, another reason for leaving Michigan a day early was to stick with our plan to drive through/around the Atlanta, Georgia metro area on a Sunday. The Cartersville KOA is about 50 miles north of Atlanta, so leaving at 7 AM allowed us to deal with Atlanta traffic between 8:00 AM and 8:30 AM on a Sunday morning. We did not have the road to ourselves, and traffic was probably slower than normal due to the rain, but this proved to be a good call on our part. We had been told that we could take the bus straight through downtown Atlanta on I-75, and our Rand McNally GPS routed us that way, but in the end we were persuaded to take the I-285 by-pass around Atlanta to the west by a sign that said “All trucks with more than 6 wheels use I-285 by-pass.” I-285 W paralleled I-75 a few miles to the west and I-285 E returned us to I-75. It did not add that many miles, and there were fewer entrance ramps with less traffic merging onto the highway than on I-75 through the city.

By the time we got south of Atlanta it was past sunrise. The rain had let up and the sky was noticeably brighter. We did not manage to outrun the storm front, but the rain became lighter and intermittent until we got into Florida when it finally ended.

We had also been advised to stop in Georgia just before the Florida state line and top off our fuel tank as the price of diesel fuel can be 20 to 25 cents per gallon higher in Florida. We have a Pilot / Flying J discount card, so we tend to look for Pilot Travel Centers and Flying J Truck Stops first. We checked their website the night before and found that they had a Pilot Travel Center at exit 11 and a Flying J Truck Stop at exit 2, both conveniently located to I-75. We have also gotten comfortable with how to get in and out of these truck stops and use the truck pumps. Even when they have “RV pumps” we never use them as access is often a problem and they usually have automotive size nozzles that take longer to fill the tank. We ended up stopping at the Pilot Travel Center at exit 11 at 11:45 AM and were back on I-75 S by 12:10PM. Upon crossing into Florida we did not see a significant difference in the price of diesel fuel, but perhaps the stations near the border try to keep their prices in line with the border stations in Georgia?

Yesterday was the first time I had driven any type of vehicle in Georgia and the first time we have had the motorhome in the state. It was not the first time either of us had been here; Linda was in Savannah once with our daughter’s Girl Scout troop and I was in Atlanta many, many years ago on business. Today was also the first time we have had the coach in Florida. Again, it was not our first time in the state. We had heard about the I-75 Florida Welcome Center, but having just stopped for fuel in Georgia we passed it by. They allow you to stay for up to 24 hours to “rest”—no slideouts; no awnings; no bar-b-cue pits; no lawn chairs—but you can definitely spend the night if you need to and are able to boondock.

Our short-term site at Williston Crossings RV Resort.

We pulled in to Williston Crossings RV Resort just after 2 PM. They had opened a new entrance on SR-121 which caused us a moment of confusion when we saw the sign as the address we had put in the GPS required us to travel another mile through Williston to get to the entrance. The entrance gate was closed, with no room to turn around, but there was an office building with an illuminated OPEN sign, so we turned it. A woman came out to greet us and explained that this was a new entrance and we were welcome to use it. She called for an escort and let us through the gate to wait for the golf cart to lead us to our site. They assigned us a great full-hookup (50 amp electrical service, of course) pull-through site with lots of shade trees. Most of the sites here are paved, and ours was close enough to level to make leveling the coach easy. It is also a very long site and would easily accommodate a 45 foot motorhome with a 25 foot trailer behind it.

The daily welcome board (with our last name misspelled).

Once we were settled we walked up to the office to register and get our packet of materials. There was a white board on the front porch of the office building with the names of all of the people arriving that day. Ours was listed; a nice touch. The resort is a “gated” community. The gates are open during the day but closed at night, so our packet included the gate code. Unlike most RV parks, the resort does not issue stickers or hangtags for the RVs, tow, or towed vehicles. Beside the usual rules, emergency numbers, etc., our packet also included a newsletter and calendar of upcoming events. The resort has an activity building with a workout room, a clubhouse, a pool and covered pavilion, and nice laundry and restrooms. The office has a billiards table, library, reading area, a small kitchenette and dining area, a gift shop, and mailboxes. (See photos at the end of this post.) If we want to it appears there are plenty of things to do here.

Williston Crossings RV Resort was one of several places that had been recommended to us by fellow GLCC member Ed Roelle. Ed and Janet have stayed there in the past and thought it was one of the best RV parks around with reasonable rates for a really nice park in Florida in the winter. We had checked out the website, which always makes a place look good, and described the variety of amenities and activities. We also checked the satellite imagery, so we knew that the park was large and had some nice tree cover. But none of that research gave us a complete or accurate picture of what is here. It is, quite frankly, nicer than we expected.

We scanned for OTA TV channels and found quite a few, including the usual trio of PBS stations. Score! The local ABC affiliate was showing The Sound Of Music, so we watched that during the evening.

Billiards table and mailboxes.

Office/library reading area.

Billiards table and library.

The office gift shop.

2013_10_02 (W) Decks, Maps, & TV

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Linda and I both worked around the house today and by dinner time we finally felt confident that the house would be presentable for the open house / house warming on Sunday. Another half day and my office will be ready for visitors. While Linda vacuumed, I installed new flappers in the two upstairs toilets and a new handle mechanism in one of them. They now flush and shut off correctly without having to do anything special with the handles or take the top off the tanks to seat the flappers by hand. Although we figured company would appreciate that, the real motivation was to make sure they did not draw water continuously through our water softening and purification system.

Jim Pipoly was back to finish the deck and had Adam to help him. A much younger guy by comparison to us, it was nice to watch the two of them work. Experience and attitude count for a lot, and quality paint work requires a careful yet efficient approach; you have to keep moving without ever rushing or letting your attention drift. They started around 9:30 AM in order to let the dew evaporate and worked until about 7 PM, but they got all of the painting done, and it looks very nice.

By late morning it was sunny but not hot. We opened all of the awnings on the motorcoach to let them dry. A couple of weeks ago at the RV rally in Goshen we had to roll them up wet and had not had a chance to unroll them since then. Not good, but not much we could do about it until today.

Linda needed some things from the grocery store, so I decided to try updating the maps in our Rand-McNally GPS again. The last time I tried this it said it was going to take 14+ hours to download the updates. It did, in fact, take that long and it hung up before it finished. Today, however, things went much better. The map and device update combined took about 2 hours and completed successfully. Yea! She brought home two Sam Adams seasonal variety 12-packs and I put them in the bus fridge to chill them down and add some mass to the refrigerator compartment. Refrigerators and freezers work much better when they are full, as long as they are overstuffed to the point where air cannot circulate.

While I was working with the GPS, Linda decided to play with the TV sets in our bus. We had never tried tuning in any local, over-the-air (OTA) stations. When Ed and Betty Burns were here in their RV in late August, they were only able to tune in one station, and that was FOX, so we figured we were out of luck. To our surprise, the front TV set found 27 digital channels, including sub-channels of the main channels. She even picked up PBS from two different sources! Yippee. And this was without aiming the antenna. Once we have a better idea of which direction to point it for each station, or cluster of stations, we may be able to pick up even more signals.

I decided to try the rear TV, which is the one with the defective rotor mechanism. It did not find as many channels on the first try, so I rotated it to the right (I think) about five positions (maybe) and tried again. This time we got 25 channels. Not bad. So much for needing satellite TV at our house! I am sufficiently impressed with the performance of these antennas that I may get two more for the house. Ideally I will mount them on the tower (existing or new). The problem will be running the co-ax and control cables (it always is).

So why the sudden interest in TV? Well…the open house is Sunday, and Sunday is professional sports day, and some of our guests are making a huge sacrifice coming to visit instead of watching their favorite sports, so….we thought making some sports broadcasts available would be a nice gesture. Of course, that means we will have to make popcorn too.

After dinner we loaded some leftover wood from the ham shack/office remodeling project into the back of the Element and got it off the lower walkout deck. We also moved the leftover suspended ceiling tiles and the shop vac back to the garage. The only projects I have left in the basement are hanging a wine glass rack over the bar and reassembling the corner of the room where I removed the knotty pine wall boards to facilitate the installation of the 240V, 100A cable to the subpanel that powers the RV outlet, ham shack, and office computer outlets. But those are tasks for another day.

Having had a reasonably productive day, I made the classic mistake of thinking I could get one more thing accomplished starting at 9 PM. I wanted to update our Garmin nuvi 465T GPS unit that we use in the Honda Element. The last time I tried to do this the Garmin Express client couldn’t connect to the Garmin servers. And so it was again tonight. Fiddle with USB cables and ports, but no success. I finally Googled Garmin Express server problems and got a lot of hits. After reading through a few knowledge base Q&As and trying to update some drivers (I had the Gamin website instead of the Garmin website and they wanted $$) I decided to just reinstall Garmin Express. I downloaded it, saved, ran the installation .exe file, and voila! it finally worked again. And my maps and other date were still there and it even recognized our specific device. It updated the device software successfully and 10:30 told me it was “Safe to Walk Away”. Really; that’s the message it gave me. Apparently the map update was going to take approximately 3 hours. The software must have known what time it was and figured I wanted to go to bed. And so I did; right after I uploaded and edited this post. Night, night.

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.

2013_07_02 (Tue) Escapade Day

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I attended two seminars in the morning on RV satellite TV systems, each presented by one of the two satellite TV vendors at the Escapade. Linda stayed at the coach and made phone calls related to the pending sale of our old house and insurance changes we made yesterday on our motorhome and towed car. She then attended a seminar on healthy living.

Although I have invested a fair amount of time in researching communications and entertainment technology options for our converted coach, I have not yet come to any conclusions regarding many of the systems, especially satellite TV. Thus, I continue to attend seminars and glean new insights from each one, and today was no exception.

Each of the seminars talked about both Other-The-Air (OTA) and satellite (SAT) antenna systems, as well as TV sets (monitors). The monitors and OTA antennas are a settled issue in our coach, as already discussed in previous blog posts. Still, the seminars confirmed our choice of 1080p monitors with digital tuners and rotatable antennas to capture the highly directional UHF digital TV (DTV) signals.

The big insights today had to do with SAT antennas and programming. As mentioned previously, Moto-Sat is no longer in business, which I had not heard prior to the FMCA rally. Former Moto-Sat employees created RF Mogul, which I had also not heard of prior to the FMCA rally, but whose SAT dishes were very much in evidence both at FMCA and at Escapade.

If /when we add SAT capability, we want to be able to watch different programs simultaneously on our two monitors, including a mix of standard definition (SD) and high definition (HD) channels. There are only two ways to do that, and only one that involves a single SAT antenna (dish). An “obvious” solution is to use two SATs as each one can then fix on its own satellite, even if it is a single satellite dish. Any dome-type antenna could be used in this configuration as all domed antennas are one-satellite-at-a-time. That might be a solution, even with the added costs of duplicated hardware and programming, but we cannot mount any SAT dish on the roof, much less two of them, so this is not a solution for us. I learned that the only single SAT solution that meets our requirements is a 3-axis multi-satellite dish (multiple LNBs). These dishes come in manual models, like the ones used on fixed houses, and automatic ones, as seen on many RVs. In our case, we would have to mount the dish on a tripod or set it on the ground, and figure out where/how to store it when not in use. The manual dishes are not too heavy and not very expensive, but have to be aimed manually (duh). I have talked to folks who have manual dishes and it can be a time-consuming and far from certain process to get them lined up with properly. The automatic dishes find and lock on to all of the required satellites at the push of a button but are heavy at about 50 pounds. They are also large, which is why they capture signals well, but that poses a storage problem when not in use.

The two major sources of these open, fold-down, 3-axis dishes are Winegard and RF Mogul, each represented by one of the presenters. Although both dishes appear to work well, it appears there are differences, especially with respect to maintenance. The Winegard dish apparently has two controllers, one of which is in the motorized dish base, while the RF Mogul has only one that goes inside the RV. Also, it appears that the RF Mogul dish has field replaceable positioning motors, whereas the Winegard does not. What this comes down to is that it appears the RF Mogul dish can be repaired in-situ, while the Winegard dish must be returned to the factory. That’s a potential problem even if the dish is not mounted on a vehicle, and a bigger problem if it is.

With respect to programming services, both presenters seemed to favor Direct TV for various reasons from programming choices, to signal acquisition, to technical support. We were leaning towards Dish Network, but we are now reconsidering that choice. The issue of major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS) remained unclear to me.

Basically, residential satellite TV customers typically get the local OTA channels (major networks) for their geographic market. The satellite companies do this by using “spot beam” technology where the satellite signals for a major market like Detroit are beamed (like a flashlight) to an area on the surface of the earth a couple of hundred miles in diameter. If you take your home receiver outside of that area, perhaps in an RV, you lose those local channels, and you do not get the local channels for whatever area you happen to be in. Both Direct TV and Dish Network appear to “solve” this problem by offering RV programming packages that include either the New York or Los Angeles local OTA stations, as these are transmitted to all of the continental US just like the rest of their channels.

The choice for us is bigger than just RVing. We do not have cable or U-verse at home, and are too far from the local OTA transmitters to receive them very well, so we have not had any form of TV since mid-April when we moved to our new house until we started RVing in June and got our OTA antennas working (sort of). If we get satellite TV at all, we are looking for something that will work at home and in the RV. We are also considering simply not having satellite TV.

After lunch we went to seminars on Full-Timing, presented by George Maylaben of the RV Driving School, and Windows 8, presented by Chris & Jim Guld of Geeks On Tour. George gave a thoughtful overview of the issues facing full-timers and those considering moving into this lifestyle. The Geeks did their usual excellent job of presenting an understandable and actionable overview of the topic, and Linda was able to go back and use some of what we learned on her laptop.

We spent some time in the Paul Everts outdoor RV display area and then went to the Tri-Chapter (6, 36, and 51) social at 4:30 PM. There was a small but friendly group present, and we got to chat with a full-timer couple from Michigan who are now residents of South Dakota. There weren’t any evening activities that interested us, so we had a quiet evening “at home” and watched a program on Wyoming PBS about Mt. Rushmore.

2013_06_30 (Sun) Happy Birthday

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Sunrise over Boxelder RV Park, CAM-PLEX, Gillette, WY

Sunrise over Boxelder RV Park, Gillette WY CAM-PLEX

Linda was up early this morning and went for a sunrise walk. Perhaps she was too excited to sleep because it was her birthday, but this is the 53^rd Escapade and the 35^th anniversary of the founding of the Escapees RV Club, so it could have been that. When she got back I brewed up some Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee (from Irene’s Beans in Milford, MI) and she opened her birthday present. Linda now has her first “cowgirl” shirt! She liked it so much that she made blueberry pancakes for breakfast with real, fresh blueberries and real Michigan maple syrup. (If you are thinking that I should have prepared breakfast for her, let me state that in the past I would have, and could have, done this but she is the resident WFPB culinary expert, and I have basically stayed out of the kitchen, and out of her way, since we started down this path two years ago.)

We got a call from our son who was checking on our house. Linda had asked him the day before to check our answering machine because it wouldn’t pick up when we called. It turned out that we didn’t have a dial tone, but our Internet connection appeared to be OK. He said there had been a lot of rain this past week, so that may be the reason. Our phone and data service come over the same wire, so I’m not sure that is the problem. We decided to wait a few days and see if it clears up. If not we will have to contact AT&T.

We had more coffee at 9 AM at the WiFi Cafe and more conversation with Charles Martin. We returned the defective Camco hose and got a replacement. Their analysis was that the metal sleeve had not been swaged properly which is why the barbed fitting did not stay in. While we were there we looked at the Camco Genturi genset exhaust stack. This is an auxiliary exhaust stack that fits on the end of the generator tailpipe and carries the generator exhaust up past the roof line of the RV. It’s made of 3” PVC in 4 foot sections, so it can be taken apart and stored. A tailpipe extension curves up into the base of the 3” pipe with room to draw in cooler air around it and creating a Venturi effect, thus the name of the product. This is a fairly easily duplicated design; the main reason to buy it is that you don’t have to source all the materials and make it yourself. The vertical pipe has to be supported somehow, and suction cups are one of the options. The vendor suggested getting large ones from Harbor Freight that are normally used for handling windshields and other large pieces of glass. If/when I build one of these, I would like to be able to hook it onto the gutter rail where the roof starts, but the large suction cups are an interesting idea, although I am not too keen on that idea with the new paint on the coach. Our Aqua-Hot exhaust exits out under the driver side of the coach right next to the generator exhaust, and I have considered building a double stack that hooks to both of these. In both cases, however, I have to be careful not to restrict the exhaust flow and create back pressure.

We walked through the vendor area again and talked to Sean at WiFi Ranger about the factory default reset we got when we turned the power off and back on. I also bought a roof mounting bracket for our WiFi Ranger Mobile. Linda bought a silicone cooking sheet for use in the microwave from RV SpaceSavers. We stopped and talked briefly to Nick & Terry Russell of The Gypsy Journal and gave Nick a copy of the February 2013 issue of Bus Conversion Magazine. Until a few years ago, Nick and Terry lived in an MCI bus that Terry had converted. (Nick is famous for not knowing how to use tools.) We talked to a vendor who provides mobile black/grey tank cleaning service, but deferred signing up. We also chatted with a satellite TV vendor who felt strongly that Direct TV was a far superior choice to Dish Network, especially if we were also going to use it at home. She confirmed that Moto-Sat had gone out of business and that RF Mogul was started by former Moto-Sat employees. We discussed the possibility of using a fully-automatic open style multiple-satellite dish on a tripod or other mount rather than having it attached to the roof. She seemed skeptical, but did not see any fundamental reason that it wouldn’t work. (In fact we have seen a lot of open style satellite TV dishes mounted on tripods or sitting on the ground, although most of them are manual dishes, not automatic.)

After our jaunt through the vendor area, we visited “The Row” to get our “bingo” sheet filled in but ended up talking to many of the chapter and C-BOF representatives. We finally met Steven Gullette from the HFH BOF, with whom we had exchanged many e-mails in the last few months. He will be one of the co-leaders on the build in Sheridan in a couple of weeks. We chatted with Lou Petkus, K9LU, and signed up for the newly formed SKP Photographers BOF (no charge). We also talked to the Elks BOF and found out that we can join the Gillette lodge while attending Escapade, so we took some information and an application form. The initiation is Friday evening.

We got back to the coach around 12:45 PM and grabbed a quick lunch before running some errands. We went back to the Boot Barn to exchange Linda’s new shirt for a different size, and had to join their “loyalty program” in order to do the exchange. The manager had to approve the exchange and was a bit surly. We will not be shopping there ever again. We also mailed an anniversary card to our son & daughter-in-law. Linda received a birthday call from her sister and a video birthday greeting from our son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter. In many respects, RV life is just like regular life.

We attended the opening / welcome ceremony at 3 PM and were delighted to see and hear from Kay Peterson, SKP #1. Dinner was leftover risotto with the rest of the Lawrence Elk black currant wine from Prairie Berry Winery, and both were excellent. I was sorry that they were both gone, but there’s more where they came from.

We went over to the Wyoming Center at 7 PM for the Door prize drawings followed by the Rivoli Review for the evening entertainment. They do a good show, with lots of energy and humor, although the patriotism was laid on fairly thick, and there were moments that were just plain jingoistic and inappropriate. Although many of the attendees were enthusiastic about their show, there were plenty of folks sitting on their hands who were clearly not so pleased.

2013_06_25 (Tue) Another Short Move

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We knew we would be changing RV parks within the CAM-PLEX this morning, so right after breakfast I dealt with sewer, water, and electric hookups while Linda secured the inside for our short but potentially bumpy trip. Bob Pinner came by around 8:00 AM to check on us, and came back around 8:30 AM to lead us to the appropriate area in Boxelder RV Park. We had our choice of spots and picked one that was level and dry, indicating relatively good drainage, with a good stretch of road in front of it. We chose site D-67 and pulled through into the site from the west so we would be parked facing east. For the nine previous prior days we have been parked facing west such that the hot afternoon sun streams in our large expanse of windshield, making it difficult to keep the front of the coach cool. It has been dropping into the 50’s at night, so the coach is cool by early morning and the morning sun on the windshield is welcome.

For some reason known only to Jasper (our 9 year old male mackerel tabby cat) our preparations to move the coach spooked him and he managed to get under the passenger-side built-in furniture (again). We finally figured out that he was gaining access through a loose heat exchanger screen. He also managed to get to a spot where we could not get to him to pull him out, so he stayed there while we moved to our new site and set up. He decided to hunker down and sleep for a while, but we eventually coaxed him out of the spot to a place where we could get him out. He had disappeared under this furniture once before. Now that we knew his method of entry Linda secured the heat exchanger screens. We think/hope we are finally done with this.

Before we were settled in to the new site, John & Cheryl pulled in next to us on the driver side in their Tiffin Allegro Bus. They were also at Windmill RV Park yesterday and had also agreed to move to Boxelder RV Park today. They were packed and ready to go when they saw us pull out, so they started up and followed us over. Rick, our driver-side neighbor at Windmill, was almost ready to leave when we pulled out, and not long after John & Cheryl pulled in, Rick pulled his Foretravel U295 into the site on our passenger side.

As we were all getting set up in our sites and chatting, I was reminded of the degree to which RVers tend to be sociable and make friends quickly and easily. This is not universally true, of course, but it is more often than not the case. I suppose the obvious reason for this is the commonalities of the lifestyle, specifically the traveling experiences, destinations, and technology. We also tend to be “people of a certain age”, retired with grown children and grandchildren. Although we come from many walks of life, and are probably more different than we are similar, the moirés of the RV sub-culture emphasize and leverage the commonalities.

Based on the weather forecast we had originally planned to go to Devil’s Tower National Monument today. Although we were set up in our new site by 10:15 AM, we decided to “stay home”, work on some small projects, and relax. Our new 10 foot Camco water hose turned out to be defective, when the hose came loose from the barbed push-fitting (again). Although I could probably fix it with a hose clamp, we decided to take it out of service and wait to see if the Camco vendor we bought it from at the FMCA rally would also be at Escapade and try to return or exchange it. It’s a matter of principal.

After lunch we deployed the patio awning to shade the bus as the passenger side now faces due south. I then went on an errand run to Home Depot, where I bought a hose clamp (just in case), a 10″ carbon filter element, a folding 2-step mini-stool (to make it easier to deploy/store the awnings), and some small plumbing parts I needed for a project in our shower. I also found Eastside RV and purchased a 10′ fresh water hose so I could reconnect our water softener. Cherie Ve Ard of Technomadia is big on the idea of serendipity, and I had a small dose of that today, although technically it was more of a “silver lining” experience. Since the water softener has a sediment filter on the input side, I decided to replace the sediment filter in the coach’s incoming water line with a carbon element.

Our new water softener with pre-filter

Imagine my surprise when I unscrewed the housing and discovered that there was no filter element inside! If not for the failed Camco hose, I might not have discovered this for quite some time.

I purchased an Oxygenics shower spray a while back to install as a replacement for both our shower head and body spray, neither of which worked very well. The Oxygenics is really a hand held sprayer that comes with a holder that threads on where the shower head normally goes, allowing it to serve a dual purpose. It is also designed to draw in air and mix it with the water (thus the name) which is supposed to give a more invigorating shower experience while using less water. I capped off the other connection where the original body spray hose was attached. The installation appeared to be successful; the water only comes out where/when it is supposed to.

Late in the afternoon we drove to the local Wal-Mart to buy some new work clothes (jeans and T-shirts) and pick up some grocery items. We had a simple but delicious dinner of lentil loaf and fresh steamed asparagus, and then went for a walk. I played some more with the front OTA TV antenna and picked up several more channels. I also decided that the position scheme I deciphered for the rear antenna was almost certainly not correct for, and therefore not applicable to, the correctly functioning front one. I came to this conclusion based on the fact that we can see (with our eyes) seven TV towers from our site, so we know exactly which direction the antenna needs to point in order to pick up their signals. I will eventually have to remove the front antenna top cover to physically verify how it works, but with warm, sunny weather forecast for the rest of this week, that task will wait for more agreeable conditions.

2013_06_24 (Mon) The Time Between The Rallies

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Today was laundry day, so after breakfast we gathered up clothes and linens. During the morning Peter & Sybil pulled out of the spot on our passenger side and shortly thereafter Ed & Rosemary pulled in (50A, full hookup). Linda left to do laundry, post office, and grocery store errands while I stayed with the coach and cats. Charles & Connie Martin, another couple from our FMCA GLCC chapter, pulled in across from us with their MCI 102C3 bus conversion. They were apparently given a hard time about parking at Windmill RV Park and were told they had to be on the west side of the paved road, which is only 30A & water (no sewer hookup). When we made arrangements with the CAM-PLEX to stay between the rallies they clearly told us we could move to Windmill anytime after 10 AM on Sunday and that 50A full-hookup sites where first come, first served. They even gave us a parking sign to put on our dash. It became apparent that there was some confusion as to who was supposed to park where.

I got on my computer (not literally, of course), went into the WiFi Ranger control panel, and reduced the power from “high” (the default) to “medium.” According to the manual (available online), the connection can sometimes be improved by using less power. I still had full/excellent signal strength in the bedroom, so I was not sure which radio this setting controls, or if it controls both, or if there are even two radios. I will probably try low power to see how that works, and talk to the WiFi Ranger folks about it when next we meet.

I worked on finishing my draft blog post for the previous day, and then went to work on hooking up the rear OTA TV antenna/rotator and TV set. My technological luck of the previous day ran out when the antenna failed its internal calibration process, and would not rotate. I went ahead and set up the TV, another 22″ Westinghouse LD-2240 (LCD/LED flat panel monitor) requiring an ATSC channel scan activation code. (Really, what’s up with that?) I was able to find and view most of the same channels we had up font, but the reception was not as good on some, probably because the antenna was not pointed in the right/best direction. A double check of the inside wiring confirmed that the RF & control cables were connected correctly, so the problem was either the roof unit wiring or the roof unit itself.

It was also possible that the problem was the rotator controller. I tested that possibility using the known-good front unit, but the rear antenna still wouldn’t calibrate. Soooo, back up on the roof to check the wiring to the antenna. The connections are on the rear underside of the housing, which is mounted on top of two brackets that place the underside about 8″ above the lower rear roof tray and just above the main roof. If you are short (I am) and flexible (not as much) there is just enough room to lie down, reach under, and use a short screwdriver. All of the wires were connected to the correct terminals, but I loosened and re-tightened them anyway, including the coax. I climbed down and retested the system, and this time it not only failed to calibrate, it displayed “Er” on the LCD. That’s what I call “negative progress!”

The installation and operation instructions indicated that the problem could be: 1) that the black wire was not connected (it was, on both ends), or 2) that something was blocking the rotor. In the later case that “something” would have to be inside the sealed antenna enclosure. However, warnings elsewhere in the instructions tell you, emphatically and in no uncertain terms, that the insides of the system are dangerous (high voltage) and that it should not be opened as there are no user serviceable parts inside. Huh? So how do I unblock the rotor?

(BTW: these are HD View 360 antennas from AntennaCrafters. There was an older model of this antenna on the coach when we bought it. It was designed primarily for the old VHF/analog TV signals and not optimized for the new UHF/digital ones. The rotation feature also no longer worked, but we liked the sealed, “flying saucer” design in which the rotating antenna parts are in a flat, weather-sealed enclosure that is fairly aerodynamic going down the road. I believe the antenna is an “active” design and provides some amplification of the signal it receives, but I am not absolutely sure of that. The new model has a controller with an RF remote and is designed to pick up the newer digital signals as well as the legacy analog stations that are still operating in some areas. Even though I was putting these two antennas in service for the first time, they were way out of warranty (90 days) as I had purchased them back in 2012 when we were having the roof redone and the coach repainted. Based on my sample of two, it appears that AntennaCrafters has a 50% failure rate on this model. I also have the problem that I bought these antennas from two different sources at two different times, and I don’t which one is which.)

At this point I will probably open up the rear antenna case. After all, with electrical engineering degrees and amateur radio licenses, I figure I’m qualified to do this without endangering my life. But with a storm approaching, that wasn’t going to happen right away. We closed up the coach and turned on the two front air-conditioners to try to keep the interior comfortable as the forecast high was 91 degrees F. The temperature outside was only 82 degrees F, but the sun was intense and the inside temperature was headed for 90.

We sat outside for awhile as it was cooler than inside, and watched a large thunderstorm develop northwest of Gillette. It was drifting to the northeast, but also expanding in size. As the southeast edge neared our location, and the winds picked up, we decided to put all of the awnings up and put the fold-up camp chairs away, not wanting to risk getting caught with them out should the storm change course and get cranked up. We stood outside and talked to Ed and Rosemary while we watched the storm develop all around us. It eventually started to sprinkle where we were so we went inside and soon had a heavy downpour that lasted for 15 -20 minutes. The winds were not overly strong, and our skylight leak (slow drip) did not reappear. The storm eventually moved on to the east. Besides the drama and beauty, the upside of the storm was that it blocked the sun and brought cooler air, both of which helped keep the outside temperature down and the coach more comfortable.

I have loved western thunderstorms since I first encountered them as a boy traveling with my parents. The combination of isolated development and unobstructed views to expansive horizons allows you to watch them develop for a long time as they move across a considerable distance. This is rarely the case back in Michigan where storms develop along frontal boundaries and are often embedded and obscured from view. Also, except in some flatter/cleared agricultural areas, views are not as expansive as in the west due to the extensive tree cover.

After dinner, and with the storm moved off to the east, I went back up on the roof to work on the rear antenna. The enclosure is held together by 8 screws inserted from underneath, but it is high enough above the roof to allow for a 4″ long screwdriver to be used. I had disassembled our old one when it was removed from the coach, so I had some idea of what to expect inside. The physical design hasn’t changed much, but the rotor was definitely binding. With nothing to lose, I moved it by hand and got it freed up, although I have no idea what, if anything, I may have broken in the process. I had Linda apply power to the controller, being careful not to come in contact with any of the deadly voltages I had been warned about in the instructions. It completed the calibration process this time and gave a direction number on the LCD. Success! (Maybe?) I had her cycle it several times, and it calibrated successfully each time, but the rotor was not consistent as to its position. I then had her slowly step through the 16 positions, up and down, several times. Based on what I saw, it appeared that position 1 is just to the driver side of the front of the bus. As the numbers increase the rotor turns counterclockwise, with position 16 just to the passenger side of the front of the bus. So positions 1 -4 appear to be port side bow quadrant, 5 – 8 port side stern quadrant, 9 – 12 starboard side stern quadrant, and 13 – 16 starboard side bow quadrant. This is, of course, with the double-headed arrow on the enclosure pointing towards the front (bow) of the coach. Both antennas are mounted this way, but since I moved the rear rotor by hand, its position may not be correct. It was also not as repeatable in its positioning as it should be, especially around positions 7 – 10, so the front one may not orient the same way. Since the instructions are absolutely silent regarding how the pointing direction corresponds to the number on the controller display, I will ultimately have to take the front enclosure apart and visually determine how it works. That would be easier, of course, if it wasn’t 8 inches above the roof and 13 feet off the ground at the time.

While I was on the roof, Bob Pinner stopped by. Bob and Molly are the Escapade Directors for The Escapees RV Club. He confirmed rumors we had heard earlier in the day relative to parking issues. It turned out that the Escapade had lost the use of three RV parks at the CAM-PLEX due to the damage done by the motorhomes departing the FMCA rally. The SKP’s had not planned on using Windmill RV Park, but now needed it for their staff and volunteers as well 30 A electric (only) registrants. It was obvious that Bob was trying to re-plan a lot of things at the last minute so we agreed to move our coach the next day. The decision was to move us back to the Boxelder RV Park, where we would have full hookups, and a good chance of 50 A power. We figured the sooner we moved the better site selection we would have, so we agreed to move first thing the next morning (8 AMish).

In spite of the issue with the rear TV antenna, we were able to use the rear TV and simultaneously watched different TV programs for the first time in quite a while as we do not currently have OTA, cable, or satellite TV at home and we do not have satellite TV in the coach. Gillette has PBS and Create, so this was the first time it felt a little bit more like living in the coach and a little bit less like being on vacation. The fact that we are between rallies with no pressing need to be anyplace specific, or do anything in particular, also contributed to this feeling.

2013_06_23 (Sun) FMCA Comes To A Close

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As usual, the exodus from the FMCA 50th Anniversary rally started early, with some motorhomes pulling out as early as 6:00 AM. It is always an interesting experience to watch the departure process from a major RV rally. Unlike the arrival process, which is highly organized and managed by the organization running the rally, the departure process is completely asynchronous and self-managed. It is not, however, chaotic; to the contrary, it is quite orderly. People leave when they need to and are ready to go, and that just seems to work out well. They are attentive and considerate, and there’s never any congestion; just a random but steady flow of RVs.

We had considerable rain the past few days, and some of the parking areas developed minor flooding and very muddy soil. Inevitably, some motorhomes were stuck and had to be pulled out. We have been in that situation on two previous occasions, but our site this past week was high with good drainage and well-graveled roads. Except for a few soft spots, notably where people cut corners too tight at intersections, there were no serious problems in Boxelder RV Park.

We had already arranged with the CAM-PLEX office to move to the Windmill RV Park this morning, so after breakfast we drove the car over to scout out a level, 50A full-hookup site. We left the car there to “hold” a spot, which were first-come, first-served, and walked back to the coach. We did our usual departure thing of unhooking the utilities, putting up the awnings, and otherwise preparing for the short, slow move. We had no problems pulling out, and took paved roads over to our new site. Once we were parked we did our arrival thing and leveled, hooked up, and settled in for the next few days.

We are staying at the CAM-PLEX while we wait for our early entry date on the 27th for The Escapees RV Club Escapade rally, which will also be at the CAM-PLEX June 30 – July 5. We will extend our stay here until July 7 and then move to Sheridan, Wyoming for two weeks to work on a Habitat For Humanity build. It appears that we will have to move again on the 27th to a different RV Park here at the CAM-PLEX as the Escapade is not using this one. But for now we have 50A power, which will allow us to run our air-conditioners. With some hot days forecast, that’s a good thing.

We decided to deploy our new Zip Dee Awnings, both to shade the coach and to let them dry out. Much to or surprise, we discovered that we could fully deploy the large patio awning following the directions we had. (We left our directions at home. The ones we had came from the Zip Dee booth and did not match our hardware exactly.) With the upper rafter arms hooked onto the roller tube shaft we could not get the latch pins on the rafter arms to engage. Our analysis of the problem was that that the fabric was either 2″ too short or the upper rafter support arms were 2″ too long. I wrote an e-mail to Zip Dee, but fortunately it never got sent. Further study of the rafter arm revealed that the hook on the free end was attached to a spring-loaded inner tube that was free to slide inside the outer tube. The available travel was just enough that the hook could be placed over the roller tube shaft AND the latch pin could be engaged.

Perhaps it is part of still being new to extended-time RVing, but the awning episode was yet another example of the emotional roller-coaster that sometimes comes with this lifestyle. First comes the surprise and then the disappointment of discovering (yet another) problem. This is followed by the frustration and annoyance of not being able to figure out what’s wrong and/or fix it. Then a certain sense of helplessness arises at not being able to get assistance or parts (things always seem to break on Sunday, so it’s rarely a “day of rest”). Next is the dread brought on by considering the possible dire consequences of continuing the journey with the problem unresolved. A sense of resignation settles over you as you accept that the problem will remain unfixed for the time being and will probably require a change of plans and added expense somewhere down the road. Then the “ah-ha” that comes from food, release from anxiety, and time for further thought. And finally, the satisfaction and sense of accomplishment that comes from having figured it out and fixed it, even if only temporarily.

Along the same line, we were discussing our broken searchlight over lunch and decided that it would be better to seal it up with Rescue Tape and not use it than try to repair it. The wires inside the base go through a hole in the roof that is not sealed. Removing the base opens up the possibility of water getting in through that hole if I am not able to get it resealed. As we rarely need/use the searchlight, that was too big a risk for too little benefit.

As we were finishing up our encampment routine, we had motorhomes pull in on either side of us; Peter & Sybil on the passenger side and Rick on the driver side. Peter & Sybil had purchased a Progressive Industries portable 50A EMS from Lawrence RV Accessories during the FMCA rally. It had been working fine, even through the big storm, but quit working when they moved to Windmill RV Park and hooked up. I looked at the unit and noticed moisture in the LCD display (where it should not be).

I shook the unit and thought heard a sloshing sound, indicating that water had probably gotten in to the unit and shorted something out. I checked the outlet with my multi-meter to make sure the power supply was properly wired and providing the correct voltages so they could at least plug in and have power. Sybil called Daryl Lawrence and he answered the phone even though it was Sunday! They were still at the CAM-PLEX and came right over. Daryl examined the unit, came to the same conclusion I had, and swapped it out for a new one. The PI EMS units are generally very reliable, and the company stands behind them and the vendors who sell them. Peter & Sybil were leaving the next day for North Dakota, so this was truly great service for a great product from a great RV vendor. (We got our Progressive Industries EMS-50 from Daryl a year or so ago and rely on it to protect our coach’s electrical systems from problems arising outside the coach.)

As long as I am on the subject of PI EMS units, when we changed campsites and plugged in I followed the maintenance recommendation I received a few days earlier from the owner regarding the buzzing coming from the unit. Immediately after applying power, during the 2′ 16″ time delay before power switches through, I quickly cycled the contactor by moving the override switch back and forth. Sure enough, the buzz disappeared. (Technical note: Although the unit is sealed, it is designed to have the cover removed so wiring connections can be made. Dust can and will build up on the contactor contacts which results in a degraded electrical connection and the resultant buzzing. The contacts arc slightly when they close and open, and cycling them quickly and repeatedly cleans them.)

Fixing the “ET” searchlight in Windmill RV Park

In the afternoon we got the Little Giant ladder out and configured it as a 14′ extension ladder. I climbed up and attached the searchlight head to the base using some of the rescue tape we bought from a vendor at FMCA. The light can still be turned on and tilted up/down, but cannot be turned side-to-side. This is a temporary fix until we can get the bus inside at Phoenix Paint and do a proper repair with Michele Henry’s help. This will probably be in conjunction with the GLAMARAMA rally in Goshen, IN September 18 -22. What is unknown at this point is how well it will hold up to travel at highway speeds. That test comes in a couple of weeks.

While I was on the roof I inspected the skylights and vent fan domes for damage from the recent hail storm, but they all appeared to be fine. I then made a temporary installation of the WiFi Ranger Mobile Titanium (WFR-MT) by zip-tying it to the weatherhead cable entrance on the front roof. I fed the cable through the weatherhead while Linda pulled it into the former ceiling mounted TV cabinet directly below. (This cabinet originally housed a 19″ CRT TV. That TV was removed and a door made by Jaral Beatty of Logansport, Indiana to cover the opening. The door is walnut veneered plywood with solid walnut edging and Jaral managed to match the existing wood finish very well. Because this was a former TV cabinet, AC power was already available inside.

With power to the WFR-MT, we were able to connect to the local/secure network and reconfigure it. We were then able to select one of the public/open WiFi signals that were still available at the CAM-PLEX and connect through to the Internet. The signals were very strong and the connection steady and reasonably fast.

After dinner we went for a walk and watched another beautiful sunset. As dusk turned to night we witnessed the rising of a “super moon”, which appeared 14% larger than normal due to a slightly closer lunar orbit. (The 14% is something Linda read online, we did not measure it.)

When we got back to the coach, Linda decided to watch Inspector Lewis on her iPad via our free WiFi connection. We were able to stream the entire episode without hesitations due to frame-buffering. That’s a pretty good WiFi connection! A lot of RVs had left the CAM-PLEX by this time, so competition for the bandwidth was obviously less than during the FMCA rally, but it was still impressive.

Since we appeared to be on a technological roll, I decided to (finally) hookup the front over-the-air (OTA) TV Antenna, rotor controller, and TV set (monitor). What’s this about going online to get an Access Code to enable ATSC scanning on the TV set??? Yup, our Westinghouse 22″ LCD/LED TVs require an activation code that can be obtained online, by text message, or by phone. Fortunately, we had all three methods available to us so we got the code, entered it into the set, and away it went. Ta-da; we have PBS and Create! Now it feels like home. 🙂

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Tag Archives: OTA TV

2016/03/21-23 (M-W) Webster Cape-Canaveral Jetty-Park Recovery

2016/03/12-14 (S-M) Middle of Nowhere Close to Everywhere

2016/03/09-11 (W-F) Shop Eat Be Happy

2015/07/06 (M) Arrested

2015/06/29 (M) Website On The Air

2015/06/27 (S) ARRL Field Day

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

2015/04/21-25 (T-S) IN, MI, Home

20150416-20 (R-M) MO, IL, IN

2015/03/04-05 (W-R) RVillage Stopover

2014/12/13-16 (S-T) In Q

2014/06/08 (N) Positioning

2014/04/15 (T) A Taxing Day

2013/12/26 (R) Our Recent Travels

2013_12_22 (N) A Rainy Night In Georgia

2013_10_02 (W) Decks, Maps, & TV

2013_07_14 (Sun) Housekeeping Chores

2013_07_02 (Tue) Escapade Day

2013_06_30 (Sun) Happy Birthday

2013_06_25 (Tue) Another Short Move

2013_06_24 (Mon) The Time Between The Rallies

2013_06_23 (Sun) FMCA Comes To A Close