Tag Archives: vegan blueberry pancakes

2015/11/09 (M) Clever Mouse

Madeline coughed quite a bit last night and we were up several times to check on her, so we did not have the best possible night’s sleep. We got up to stay at 7:30 AM and Madeline got up about 15 minutes later. I made our morning coffee while Madeline helped her grandma wash blueberries and make vegan blueberry pancakes. We had a lovely breakfast with orange juice, pancakes with real maple syrup, and blueberries, raspberries, and bananas on the side.

I check the mouse traps in the pantry every morning. A couple of days ago I found one of them broken with the food gone and some mouse poop left in its place. The pantry doors had been left open overnight so I figured one of the cats had discovered the trap (we use live traps) and tossed it around until the door fell open and the mouse escaped. I threw it away since it was broken. This morning I discovered that the food in the other trap had been replaced by mouse poop but the trap was upright with the door closed and was not broken. The pantry had been closed all night so I knew the cats had nothing to do with it. Apparently we have a mouse that has figured out how to defeat the traps. We are not going to set kill traps so we will have to see what else we can find.

We lingered in the living room for a while enjoying our coffee by the fireplace, listening to Madeline play (with) the organ, and watching her play with some of her toys. She made her futon into a car and took her two “bunnies” for a ride. By 9:30 AM I had finished my coffee and changed into my work clothes. It was just below freezing when we got up this morning, but it was a bright, sunny day with no wind, so it would be a comfortable enough day for working on the bus once I turned up the thermostats and warmed up the interior a bit.

My focus today was to get the SurePly underlayment installed on the floor of the passenger seat platform and maybe the two walls. I also wanted to get the outside wall panel trimmed off so it will fit around the tile and needed to build a new step with an open front, but I did not expect to get to those tasks today. First up, however, was getting the small patch I worked on yesterday to fit better and be secure.

I trimmed both ends of the underside of the main patch and recut the side/support panel. I trimmed the side panel several times before I was satisfied with the fit. I used heavy-duty double-sided tape to hold the top patch and side panel to the metal structure underneath. I used a 1-1/2″ stainless steel self-drilling wood screw to secure the top to the vertical piece of 3/4″ plywood that forms the face of the passenger seat platform, and a shorter screw to secure the side panel to the same piece of plywood. I then attached a temporary plate of SurePly over the side panel to the edge of the top plate to hold the side in alignment with the top.

The metal under this patch is rounded leaving a small space between the top and side pieces where they meet. The vertical plywood front face is also beveled leaving a void. I used Door and Window Trim Spray Foam Insulation to fill these areas. This foam has a lower expansion than most spray foam insulation. I did not overfill the voids but put enough in that it expanded out past the edge. I will trim it off flush tomorrow when it is cured. The foam adheres to anything it touches and is rigid enough to be somewhat structural so it should stabilize and secure the patch. Once I trim it and cover it with underlayment it should be good as new.

Madeline’s Aunt Meghan, who is also her buddy, came to visit and play with her today. She arrived at noon and I took a break to visit and have lunch. After lunch Madeline, Meghan, and Linda went to the Brighton Mill Pond Playscape and I resumed working on the bus. They were gone for several hours.

Floor patching compound being applied to the co-pilot/navigator platform.

Before I could put a layer of underlayment on the passenger seat platform I needed to use floor patching compound to fill in some low spots and create a smooth taper from the plywood to some metal edging. But first I removed all of the screws that secure this edging and counter-bored the holes so the screw heads would be flush. As often seems to happen when I am working on something like this some of the screws were rusted and I did not have appropriate replacements. I then have to make a trip to Lowe’s, which is what I did, and bought a small quantity of three different size flathead wood screws. I stopped at O’Reilly’s Auto Parts to see if they had the large metal or nylon washers that are used with the swivel base for the front chairs. They didn’t, but once again suggested that I try Howell Hardware in downtown Howell. I have received that suggestion from people at several different stores so guess I need to check the place out.

When I got back home I finished installing the new screws. The floor patch compound takes a minimum of three to four hours to dry, sometimes much longer, but after two hours it was dry enough for me to use a sanding sponge to smooth out some ridges and feather some edges that needed it. It was clear, however, that I wasn’t going to be able to accomplish what I set out to do today. And so it goes; I need to do the work correctly which means doing all the things that need to be done in the order that they need to occur. Everything takes time and things that have to dry, set, or cure do so on their own schedule, not mine.

Phil had shown up around 3 PM so I went out to chat briefly with him and then went inside to change clothes. He had a partial load of topsoil left from a job earlier today and dumped it on the other side of the street by the 3rd driveway culvert. He used his front loader to place it along the south side of the new pull-through driveway extension and moved the small pile from the west end of the property to the north side of the driveway.

I still had plenty of daylight and wanted to make some good use of my time so I started thinking ahead to the layout of the tile in the cockpit. I measured various parts of the cockpit and although the number of square feet is small compared to the main floor the layout will be more difficult. As with all tile layouts it needs to be “balanced” while avoiding small pieces. Linda and I agreed that the pattern in the cockpit does not need to match the main floor, which is laid out diagonally, so that opens up options for how to lay out the tile.

The main landing is less than two tiles wide (front-to-back) so the best layout for that area is with a grout line dividing it in half, but that might not work well in the driver’s area. The driver’s area presents the additional problem of a steering column, brake pedal/valve, an accelerator pedal with its electrical cable that goes through the floor. The “holes” in the tile to accommodate these things have to be created using two notched pieces so they can be installed around the protrusions. I also need holes for the seat base mounting bolts and power cable for the 6-way power base. Those can be actual holes but I do not want grout lines to fall at the edges of the base. I also have to be cognizant of the walls, which are getting tiled. The distance along the face of the passenger seat platform is close to 65″. The tiles are 16″ squares so four tiles with three 1/8th” grout spaces is only 64-3/8″. See, it’s complicated.

The other thing I pondered and measured was the new step between the passenger seat platform and the main floor. Again there are several parameters: (1) We want the finished (tiled) height to split the distance from the tiled platform to the tiled main floor exactly in half; (2) we want the finished depth to be half the finished depth of the platform, and; (3) we want an open front so we can store shoes under the step. The total rise will be just under 14″ so the step rise will be a little less than 7″. Subtracting about an inch for wood and tile will leave a 6″ high space for shoes. The platform is 29″ deep so splitting that in half results in two treads of 14-1/2″, plenty deep for shoe storage. I considered having the step angle across the platform, being deeper by the driver seat and shallower by the passenger seat. While it would add an element of aesthetic interest it would greatly complicate the construction without adding any practical utility, so I rejected that idea.

As I considered the construction of the new step I was also thinking about the fact that there is a hole in the front end of the passenger side HVAC duct. The hole opens into the space behind the switch panel on the wall next to the passenger seat and just aft of the entry door but there is nowhere for the air to go from there. The hole is easy to see but not easy to reach so I estimated it to be three inches in diameter which is approximately seven square inches in area.

One possibility is to install a 4″ diameter circular louvered duct in the switch panel. It would be large enough in area, could be rotated to direct the flow in any desired direction, and has internal shutters that could be closed down to reduce or cut off the air flow. The main downside is lack of space behind the panel but I could cut off the tube behind the locking tabs. Another downside is that the cats sleep under the passenger chair while the bus is moving and the direct airflow might be uncomfortable and/or annoying for them.

Another possibility is to create a narrow duct along the back wall of the platform the same height as the new step and tie it in to the inside of the step, allowing the conditioned air to come out the open front. That will involve a bit more woodworking and complicate the tile installation, but could be added later, so I will probably opt for the round louvered register for now, if I do anything.

When I was done pondering the HVAC possibilities I put the seat pedestals back on the landing, locked up the bus, and went inside to change clothes. Meghan left while I was changing clothes so I did not get to say goodbye. Apparently Linda thought I was taking a shower and would be a while. Since we needed to get Madeline back to her house well before her bedtime we decided to head to Ann Arbor and have dinner there. I deflated and rolled up her portable toddler bed while Linda and Madeline gathered up her clothes, books, toys, and other things. I loaded the car while Linda got her dressed to travel. I checked in with Phil to get a status update and let him know we were leaving. We were on our way at 4:45 PM.

The drive down was OK as the really heavy traffic was headed north out of Ann Arbor. We tried to keep Madeline awake by reviewing all the fun things she had done since she got to our house late Friday afternoon but we were not successful. As I exited M-14 eastbound onto US-23 southbound I could see that traffic was stopped not far after the Plymouth Road exit so I left the highway and headed west on Plymouth Road to Huron Parkway. From there I headed south, paralleling US-23 to the west. At Washtenaw Avenue I turned east, and after a short distance turned left into the small shopping plaza where Elevation Burger was located.

I order a grilled cheese sandwich and Mandarin oranges for Madeline. Linda and I had vegan burgers and fries and Linda shared her fries with Ms. M. Madeline was slow to wake up but perked up when her food arrived. That girl likes to eat! 🙂 After dinner we made the short trip to Madeline’s house and arrived at 6:30 PM. Linda got Madeline into her pajamas while I brought all of the stuff in from the car and turned up the thermostat.

Madeline was wide awake and full of energy so she played with her kitchen toys and tools and had Grandma Linda read her four stories. I dozed off for a little while and then spent some quality time with Gus the cat. Gus loves people but tends to keep his distance from Madeline who is just a bit too energetic and enthusiastic for him.

Brendan and Shawna’s flight was due in to Metro Airport at 6:50 PM and he texted Linda at 6:51 that they had landed. They were home before 8 PM and got to spend time with their very awake, excited, and active daughter. We left at 8:30 and stopped at Biggby Coffee on Washtenaw Avenue. Rain was moving into our area from the south but had not yet arrived and the drive home was uneventful. We were home by 9:15 PM and headed straight to bed where we watched Scorpion and NCIS-LA. Linda came down with a cold while Madeline was here and went to sleep as soon as NCIS was over. I watched Travelscope on the Create channel and left the TV on while I worked on this post. It was another long, busy day during which I made forward progress on the bus.

2015/10/10 (S) The New Camera

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Madeline was awake before 7 AM and coughing loose a bit of nasal/chest congestion. A little after 7 Linda put on her robe and went to check on her. I put my robe on too and Linda brought her to bed with us. She lay quietly between us for a half hour, as dawn gradually illuminated the outside world, but never fell back asleep. I needed to change position and offered to hold her on the sofa in the living room, which she accepted. I turned on the fireplace and she climbed up in my lap and snuggled up. Linda joined us a little while later and the three of us cuddled in the dancing light and warmth of the fire for another 20 minutes. These are the special moments.

Madeline wanted to see the last part of the Curious George video we watched last night so Linda did video duty while I made a pot of coffee. By the time the cartoon was done Madeline was awake enough to help make breakfast; vegan pancakes with blueberries incorporated into the batter. Madeline helped mix all of the ingredients but Linda handled the cooking. Madeline is only 34 months old after all, and not ready to work with sharp objects or heat. We had hot real maple syrup and mixed berries on the side with orange juice (not from concentrate).

The whole morning was accomplished in our robes and pajamas and it felt like it was Sunday. Madeline even got to see a half dozen very large wild turkeys in the street in front of our house. The cats seem to know when Madeline is seated at the table and often emerge long enough to get a few kibbles and a drink of water. Madeline got some berry stains on her pajamas so Linda got her undressed to get them out. Madeline took that as an opportunity to enjoy the freedom of running around in her birthday suit for a few minutes. You can get away with that when you are not yet three years old.

Everyone got dressed and then took up their stations in the living room. Linda and Madeline played with Legos and played (with) the organ. Ms. M and I then played “soccer,” throwing, catching, and kicking a large beach type ball and a small soccer type ball. Madeline was still a little tired so Linda sat with her while she played an iPad game that involved taking care of a dog.

Yesterday the UPS truck delivered a package from B&H Photo in New York. Inside was a Sony alpha 99 camera body, specifically an SLT-A99V, which included an infoLithium (Lithium ion) battery and charger, a camera strap, a hot shoe flash adapter, Getting Started instructions, a CD-ROM with software and manuals, and various pieces of paper that included warranties and special offers. Also in the box was a vertical battery grip (VG-C99AM), five additional infoLithium batteries, a belt-mount battery holder, and two 64 GB SDXC memory cards.

Linda suggested that this was my Christmas and birthday present for the next five years, but the reality is that the old Sony alpha 100 body was an increasingly unsatisfactory camera and needed to be replaced. I bought the a100 in 2007 or 2008 and have not spent hardly any money on photographic equipment since then. The a99 has been around for a few years now but is still Sony’s top-of-the-line full-frame (36mm x 24mm) sensor, A-mount lens body, which means it is compatible with all of my old existing A-mount Minolta lenses. As it turns out, I can also use A-mount lenses designed for smaller sensors, such as the lens that came with the a100. The a99 detects the lens format and adjusts the use of the sensor accordingly. The a100 zoom lens, however, was an inexpensive “kit” lens that turned out not to be very sharp, especially around the edges, so it is unlikely that I will ever use it with the a99.

At 24 MP (mega pixels) the a99v is not a state-of-the-art camera by comparison to the newest offerings from Canon and Nikon, or even Sony’s own E-mount product line, but it is double the pixel count of the 12 MP a100, and has many features that the a100 does not have, including much better auto-focus and much better sensitivity to low light. The maximum effective ISO speed on the a100 is 1600 whereas the a99v is 25600 and can be set even higher if needed. The a99v also includes a built-in GPS receiver that enables it to geotag images. It includes a hot shoe flash adapter, as well as a PC flash connection, so I have some hope that I will be able to use my old flash equipment, something I have not been able to do with my much older Sony alpha 100.

The old a100 holds one Lithium ion battery and one Compact Flash card, 4 GB maximum. It also has an adapter so it can use SD memory cards, but the maximum usable capacity is still 4 GB. The a99v also holds one Lithium ion battery in the camera body but holds two additional batteries in the vertical grip accessory. Not only will the vertical grip be handy for shooting in portrait orientation, the two additional batteries should allow for extended shooting time even when using flash. The body also has two memory card slots both of which can accept SD memory cards up to 64 GB. Slot one can also accept a Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo.

Digital cameras are sophisticated combinations of mechanical, optical, electronic, and computer technologies. Compared to film cameras of yesteryear prosumer and professional cameras, both single lens reflex (SLR) and single lens translucent (SLT) like the a99v, are feature-rich devices designed to give photographers complete control of the images that are produced. That also means they are complicated devices with significant learning curves. Throw in the fact that cameras like the a99v can shoot HD movies with sound and it takes considerable practice over an extended period of time to really master their use. But I am retired, and photography is one of my three hobbies, so I have, and will take, the time to learn to use this new camera competently. Competence in this case means the ability to quickly and intuitively select modes and adjust settings to allow me to capture (create) the images I envision.

Brendan called to see how Madeline was doing and arranged to pick up her up later in the afternoon, after the 3:30 PM start time of the U of M football game. Unless you are attending the game you do not want to drive in, or anywhere near, Ann Arbor for the four or five hours preceding the opening kickoff. It’s not a great place to be after the game ends either, especially as regards getting in to a restaurant or pub, unless you specifically want to be part of the pre/post game experience.

Madeline wanted to go outside and swing so we put on our shoes and got her into a light jacket. She is just learning to pump her feet. She understands the concept but does not yet having the timing. When she was done with the swing we collected branches and twigs that were lying in the yard and added them to the burn pile. We then walked around part of the back yard but her shoes got wet from the grass and she wanted to go back inside.

I checked our apple tree and was surprised to see damage that looked similar to that caused by the Emerald Ash Borer. It’s possible that deer have been chewing at the bark but whatever the cause there are some very large limbs that are now dead. What concerned me is that I do not recall them being in that condition the last time I looked. The tree is very old, very large, and has not been properly pruned for a very long time. We may end up losing it in the end, which would be a shame, but the time to prune is late winter to very early spring and we have not been here at that time of year the last two seasons. I have my eye on a portion of the western 2/3rds of our yard, however, as prime real estate for some new trees, including some fruit trees. But not this year, and probably not next year either.

Madeline was hungry after her backyard adventure. She had soy yogurt and pistachios for lunch and found the pistachios very much to her liking. She and Linda watched a Daniel Stripped Tiger cartoon and then she laid down for a nap at 1:30 PM. I snuck off to my office to check e-mail, install the software that came with my new camera, and start downloading updates for the Linux box. Completing the installation of the Sony Play Memories Home software required the camera to be connected to the computer, so I installed the two SDXC memory cards and one of the fully charged batteries. On first power up I had to set the date and time. I then connected it to the computer with the provided USB cable and completed the software installation.

One of the things the PMH software does is go through the PICTURES folder and catalog all of the images it finds by date and makes them accessible through a calendar view. The camera also came with the Image Data Converter program for dealing with RAW format image files and Remote Control software that allows the camera to be tethered to a computer and controlled from there. I will eventually have to figure out if/how Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop deal with Sony RAW files.

I quit working at 3 PM, Linda got Madeline up at 3:30, and Brendan arrived at 3:35. Madeline had been sleeping pretty soundly and did not wake up easily. She was initially upset that her mom did not come with her dad to get her and got herself worked up enough that she took quite a while to settle down. To make matters worse she really wanted to stay another night at our house and was resisting going home even though she wanted to see her mommy. When you are not yet 3 years of age it’s hard to understand that you cannot have mutually contradictory things at the same time, although I suppose in this case that had Shawna come to the house and stayed overnight Madeline could have had everything she wanted.

Linda got Madeline’s toddler bed deflated and packed for travel and rolled up her sleeping bag. She and Brendan then gathered up all of the things that had to go back to Ann Arbor. Madeline does not travel light; the clothes, books, toys, stuffed animals, and other accoutrements filled four carry bags in addition to the bed and sleeping bag.

After Brendan and Madeline left I checked my e-mail and replied to several having to do with my duties as secretary of the FMCA Freethinkers Associate Chapter. We will be holding our annual meeting by teleconference in the next three to six weeks and I have to update the roster and prepare financial statements.

I transferred the complete User’s Manual for the Sony a99v from the CD-ROM to my laptop, backed it up to the NAS units, and then e-mailed it to my iPad. I downloaded it to my iPad and spent much of the evening reading it. We headed off to bed a little after 9 PM. I tuned into the Create channel on Detroit PBS (WTVS) and watched a series of back-to-back episodes of Cooking with Nick Stellino while I worked on this post. Nick’s show is charming and he is the poster boy for unapologetic high self-esteem but with no hint of arrogance. His love of food and passion for cooking is infectious and I enjoy his show.

2015/07/19 (N) Another Buddy Visit

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Linda was up at 6:30 AM to get showered before Madeline woke up at 7 AM. Once Madeline was up they got busy right away making vegan blueberry pancakes. I was up at 7:20 AM, got a quick shower, and was dressed and seated at the table just in time for breakfast. The pancakes cooked especially well this morning although I would like to try them sometime without the blueberries cooked in. After we were done eating I made coffee while Linda and Madeline prepared vegan sloppy Joe’s in the crock pot for lunch.

Mara has been getting up when she feels like it and eating breakfast by herself. By 9 AM she was outside emptying the passenger side storage bays on her motorhome. She spent the rest of the morning going through the stuff she had removed, deciding what to keep, organizing it, and putting it back. I gathered up our laundry, sorted it, and started a load.

Aunt Meghan (our daughter) and Uncle Chris (her husband) arrived at 10 AM and I brewed another pot of coffee. This was the second buddy visit of Madeline’s stay (the first was Cousin Katie on Friday). Meghan provided a lot of child care during Madeline’s first 18 months and Madeline adores her “buddy.” She took Meghan on a tour of the house showing her where various things, like snacks and kitty cats, were to be found. It was a sure sign that Madeline is finally feeling very comfortable at our house.

Having other adults around gave Linda a break and some time to finish preparing lunch, although once Madeline realized Grandma Linda was at work in the kitchen she had to help. I went out around 11:45 AM to fetch Mara. We all sat down at noon and enjoyed a simple but delicious meal of vegan sloppy Joe’s (based on textured vegetable protein aka TVP), corn on the cob, raw baby carrots, and black grapes.

Madeline had very busy days yesterday and the day before and got up a little tired this morning so by 1 PM she was more than ready for her nap. Meghan and Chris had things to do and took their leave. Mara went back to work on her rig and Linda laid down for a nap. I tended to the laundry and then went out to work on our bus and Mara’s motorhome.

I used the Speedout set to try and remove the screw with the stripped head from the stop block on the passenger side fixed glass frame. I was not successful with this tool so I switched gears and worked on Mara’s cell phone booster system. I climbed on the roof and she handed me the 12″ x 18″ thin galvanized sheet steel plate. I took it to the front of the roof, set it down on the fore-aft centerline, and positioned the 4″ magnetic mount antenna in the center. I dropped the coax over the edge by the driver’s side window and climbed back down from the roof.

Mara opened the sliding side window and screen by the driver’s seat and I passed the coax in to her. Inside the rig we positioned the amplifier on the driver’s seat and started experimenting with various positions for the inside antenna. We found one that worked well and left it for her to try. I checked the laundry and then laid down for a nap.

I skipped dinner as I had a SLAARC meeting at 6:30 and had to leave before 6 PM which is when Madeline was having her evening meal. Our ham radio club meetings start with social time from 6:30 to 7:00 PM. The meeting was called to order at 7 PM by president Harvey (AC8NO) and I agreed to act as recording secretary. Linda was not able to attend because she was taking care of Madeline so I gave the treasurer’s report in her absence. The meeting adjourned at 7:10 PM. We reconfigured the room for the program which was a presentation and debrief of our recent field day activity. Larry (K8UT) reported on the N1MM Logger Plus networked computer logging software. Steve (N8AR) reported on the radios and antennas and conducted the debriefing.

I got back home before 9 PM. Madeline was asleep and the ladies were each enjoying a glass of Pinot Grigio on the back deck. I poured one for myself and joined them. The mosquitoes eventually appeared and we retreated indoors. I reheated the bowtie pasta from the other night and finished it for dinner. We said “good night” at 10 PM after which I checked e-mail and websites and then headed to bed. I wrote for a while before turning out the lights.

2015/07/05 (N) Return to HFM

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Madeline helps Grandma Linda mix the batter for vegan blueberry pancakes.

The day started with Grandma Linda’s fabulous, made from scratch, blueberry vegan pancakes for breakfast, which Madeline helped make! After breakfast we took Madeline to the Howell Farmers Market (HFM). She had been to this market with us once before and it was a beautiful Michigan summer morning for a return visit. On the drive over we discussed why it is that you cannot buy a farmer at a farmers market and you cannot buy a garage at a garage sale. English can be a funny/strange language.

We walked the entire market, which is not really that big, and Linda bought some fresh strawberries. A couple of the regular vendors were missing. In particular we wanted to buy some more soap from Marjorie but she was not there. Madeline enjoyed checking out the child and doll sized wooden furniture that one vendor had for sale. We kept an eye out for someone selling jelly beans but did not see any so we stopped at the CVS on the way home and got a small bag of them.

We had just gotten home and I was unlocking the front door when Brendan and Shawna arrived. We had a nice visit and they stayed for a light lunch. By the end of lunch Madeline was showing signs of being ready for her nap so Brendan transferred the car seat and stroller from Linda’s car to their car, gathered up all of Madeline’s things, and loaded their car. Madeline left with her parents at 12:30 PM and Linda laid down for a nap shortly thereafter.

I looked at the SLAARC WordPress website on my iPad to make sure it was working. I checked most of the pages except for the Member Only Area, which requires a login, and they appeared to be OK. I then went to my office to deal with things that needed to be dealt with from there.

Madeline tries on a child sized rocking chair at the Howell Farmers Market.

My first task was to update the roster and financial records for our FMCA Freethinkers Associate Chapter. I sent e-mails to new members, uploaded the updated roster to our Dropbox, and e-mailed everyone that they were available. I had received the draft copy of the June 2015 issue of Bus Conversion Magazine on Friday. I proofread part 3 of my 4-part article on the exterior renovation of our motorcoach and sent corrections to the editor. I then settled in to edit blog posts.

I took a break for dinner. Linda cooked Brussels sprouts and heated some vegan riblets. The barbecue sauce on these riblets is very tasty. We had vegan chocolate cupcakes for dessert and they were very tasty too. I then went back to my office and continued editing blog posts.

I took a break just before 8 PM to join the South Lyon 2m Information Net using our new Yaesu FTM-400DR/DE RADIO but I did not hear anything except noise. I left the radio on for a while and then turned it off. I switched the coax to the Icom IC-7000 and turned it on but did not hear anything there either. I turned the IC-7000 off, switched the coax back to the FTM-400, turned it back on, and went back to work at my desk. Around 8:30 PM the squelch started opening and I heard very faint voices way down in the noise. After listening carefully I was able to determine that it was Steve (N8AR) running the net but I could not understand most of what was being said.

It was the first time in a long time that I had tried to participate in the net and I was disappointed that the new installation of the antenna on the tower and coax cables to the radios in the basement was not working adequately. They were working OK when I tested them with Mike (W8XH) so it could have been an unusual band condition but Steve was obviously getting in from farther to the west than our QTH. I enjoy operating and am looking forward to finally having our larger tower up and some HF antennas in operation but for now I need to concentrate on getting the VHF/UHF stuff working reliably (correctly and consistently).

I exchanged some e-mails with Gary at BCM regarding the magazine and then continued editing blog posts. I got through the end of June by 11 PM and quit for the night.

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.

2015/03/22-23 (N-M) Why Ajo

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[Photos for this post are in an image gallery at the end.]

2015/03/22 (N) A Day of Rest

After two days of bouncing around in the desert, getting in and out a truck and working hard to capture good images, we were all tired and needed/wanted an easy, relaxing day. Lou and I also wanted time to work on processing images on our computers. Being Sunday, and not being in a hurry to go anywhere, Linda made her yummy vegan blueberry pancakes for breakfast. After breakfast she walked up to the office and switched us to the weekly rate which would allow us to stay through Wednesday morning for just a few extra dollars. We then settled in to read (Linda) and work on RV club and photo tasks (me).

Early afternoon we cleaned out the back seat of our car and took Val with us to see the small city of Ajo and visit the mine museum there. Most businesses were closed but the museum was open and the people there were very knowledgeable. We then drove a scenic road that went west out of town and circled counterclockwise through some very interesting and rugged BLM land before ending at Darby Well Road and AZ-85. The road was good enough gravel most of the way that we were able to do it without difficulty in our front wheel drive Honda Element. The Element, however, has very good ground clearance.

Based on our few days experience in this area I would not venture off of paved roads without a high ground clearance vehicle at minimum. A 4-wheel drive vehicle with tires that can withstand gravel/rocks and also perform well in soft, sandy soil would be preferred or necessary depending on exactly where you want to go. We have been thinking about eventually getting a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited to replace our Element but developed a serious case of Jeep Wrangler envy while we were in Quartzsite. Driving through Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and the Florence to Kelvin Road has only served to solidify our desire to have a vehicle that is up to the challenge of being off-pavement.

As we drove the loop there were smaller two-track roads that led off through BLM land and into the Prieta Cabeza National Wildlife Refuge (PCNWR). They were not all closed but we knew from the Visitors Center that they would be before reaching the PCNWR. The PCNWR is the last place where Sonoran Pronghorn Antelope survive in the wild and their numbers are dangerously low. The breeding season is mid-March to mid-May and most of the NWR is closed during that time. Not that it is ever really open. The Visitor Center is on the north side of Ajo on AZ-85 and easily visited. The refuge, which lies to the west and south down to the Mexican Border, is the size of the state of Connecticut. It has no paved roads, a few very rough dirt roads, no human inhabitants, no services (including cell phone signals), and a climate with daily and seasonal extremes. This is why it one of the few truly wild places remaining in the lower 48 states. I would not consider traveling through the refuge without a functioning HF ham radio system; it would be the only way to call for help.

Every drive we have taken in this area starts with a large sign warning you of drug smuggling and illegal immigration activity and advising you of the risks and what to do if you encounter people in the desert. The only evidence we saw of such activity were the black plastic one gallon jugs, that are apparently the container of choice for carrying water, and the U. S. Customs & Border Patrol vehicles, agents, ATVs, and helicopters which are numerous and ever present in this area. One reason is that the main facility for the Customs & Border Patrol in this area is on AZ-86 just east of where it starts in Why and about a mile before the boundary of the Tohono O’Odham Indian reservation and Hickiwan Trails RV Park, filling station, and casino.

The helicopters seemed particularly interested in the mountains just east of our RV Park, day and night, the entire time we were there. Dave, the park manager, told us that the mountains contained many small caves that were used by “spotters” to elude detection and escape the desert climate while the washes were favored travel routes providing cover and easier travel. The helicopters would hover or travel very slowly below the ridge line, apparently checking each known cave and crevice where someone might be hiding. Dave said that on one occasion he witnessed heavily armed agents repel out of the helicopters.

It’s a constant cat and mouse game, but it is serious business. Illegal immigrants risk their lives trying to enter the U. S. through this vast and inhospitable wilderness and some of them do not survive the journey. The drug smugglers are criminals and agents have been killed by them. The Visitor Center at OPCNM is named for one such agent who was murdered patrolling the Monument. He was in his late 20’s. And yet we felt perfectly safe the entire time we were in this area. Like rattlesnakes, cacti, and other aspects of this desert you simply have to be thoughtful about where you go and what you do and be aware of your surroundings. Vigilance is your best/only defense here.

2015/03/23 (M) Return to Ajo

Ajo is Spanish for garlic. We found a few widely scattered Ajo Lilies blooming in the desert just south of our campground and tried photographing them on several different occasions. The Lilly is not a member of the garlic family, but got its name because the flowers have a faint smell of garlic, or so someone thought when they were named. Regardless of where the name came from they are lovely white trumpet bell shaped flowers that are 6 to 10 inches from the ground, and therein lies the photographic challenge.

Mid-late morning all four of us headed back to Ajo. The central plaza is a three-side U-shaped arrangement of (faux?) adobe buildings that dates from 1917. The two sides of the U house a variety of stores including a cafe and coffee shop where Linda and I got some coffee. The bottom of the U is the old train depot and now houses the Ajo Chamber of Commerce. The buildings have full length covered sidewalks with arched supports. The parking is also U shaped, following the arrangement of the buildings, and the central area has grass, benches, and a bandstand. Ajo is something of an arts community and many of the store fronts were gallery spaces with local artwork for sale.

Just across the main street from the open end of the plaza were two white washed adobe churches, one Catholic and the other Federated, and beyond those the old high school that is now a conference center with 30 apartments that are rented by local artists. Kitty-corner to the left was the only restaurant in town that appeared to be open for business. Fortunately for us our friends at Technomadia had been there earlier in the season and assured their blog followers that it was an excellent little place to dine. Our waitress was charming and our food was good.

Being any artsy community there are lots of murals around town. Some of them were in an alley across the street from the restaurant so we started there. One in particular that we wanted to find was a tribute to the movie “Night of the Lepus” which was filmed in Ajo some years ago. It was a B- Sci-Fi/horror flick about mutant killer rabbits, but it is Ajo’s singular claim to movie fame, so it is remembered and celebrated. We found the mural on the north end of town.

By the time we finished scouting murals and visiting the occasional shop it was 4:30 PM and we were all ready to return to camp. When we got back to our rigs we circled our chairs in the shade of Lou and Val’s 5th wheel, brought out an assortment of snacks, and enjoyed the cool early evening breeze while we talked about our visit to the area. We shot a few sunset photos and called it a day. Lou wanted to take one more stab at astro photography before we left so we checked websites and apps to determine where/when the Milky Way would be visible. The answer was low in the southeast sky from 3 to 5 AM. Given that my camera was not up to the task I decided to pass and get some rest, as we had decided we would leave late Tuesday morning and head back to Arizona City.

: Flowers by the Ajo Chamber of Commerce in the old train depot at the plaza.

: Flowers by the old train depot in Ajo, AZ.

: The covered sidewalk along the southern building of the U-shaped plaza in Ajo, AZ.

: Another flower we spotted in Ajo, AZ.

: Sunset as seen just south of the Hickiwan Trails RV Resort. This is an HDR image.

: One of the many murals in the alley across the street from the restaurant where we had lunch in Ajo, AZ.

: Another mural in the alley. This one was on a door, which I liked.

: The use of words to create this mural intrigued me. Ako, AZ.

: I lie this Ajo mural and it was painted where it could be photographed nicely.

: I find that I am often attracted to doors as photo subjects. This one was the front entrance to the Catholic church across from the Ajo Plaza.

: We finally found the mural for the Sci-Fi move “Night of the Lepus on the north-facing wall of a building on AZ-85 on the north end of Ajo.

: This mural was also on a building on AZ-85 on the north end of Ajo, AZ. It is approximately 70 feet long.

…

2015/01/27-31 (T-S) Q 2015 W5

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2015/01/27 (T) Ahhh, Mexico

We packed quite a bit into today. After having toast and coffee for breakfast we drove to Yuma through heavy cloud cover and fog. It made for an interesting and beautiful drive, but we did not pull off the road to take pictures. There is often a tension between the need to get somewhere and the desire to stop and take photographs. Today the destination took precedence.

When we got to Yuma we drove around looking for the Main Street that led to the heart of downtown and Yuma Territorial Prison. This was only the second time we had been in Yuma and the first time I had driven here and I did not quite remember how the streets ran, which is unusual for me. Yuma is not that big of a town and I was able to get oriented fairly easily with the help of the GPS map. I missed a turn, however, and we ended up driving over the single lane bridge on the Ocean to Ocean Highway. We stopped at a Casino just short of the California border, turned around, and went back over the bridge. Being single lane the traffic is controlled by stop lights on each end.

Main cell block, 1875 Yuma Territorial Prison. Yuma, AZ.

I made the correct turns this time and got us to the parking lot for the 1875 Yuma Territorial Prison State Park. Very little of the original prison remains, but there is enough of it to give a feeling for what it was like. The small museum does a good job of telling the story, but a tour guide (from Canada) helped fill in details and answer questions. Although part of the Arizona State Parks system, it is operated by a local organization staffed by volunteers.

The prison and the Quartermaster State Park are the two main tourist attractions in Yuma. Beyond those two things it is the closest city to Quartzsite with a good selection of major retailers. Yuma is also home to Marine Corps Air Station Yuma and the U. S. Army Yuma Proving Grounds are just 20 miles north of town. But the thing that interested us is that Yuma is the wintertime lettuce bowl of North America. The flat topography and rich soil, watered by an extensive irrigation system fed by the Colorado River and worked by Mexican laborers, spreads as far as the eye can see and supports a vast crop of a large variety of leafy green vegetables.

From the prison I drove west on I-8, almost immediately crossing the Colorado River into the extreme southeast corner of California. Eight miles later we exited onto CA-186 and headed south through the Quechan Indian Reservation to the U.S./Mexican border crossing at Los Algodones. We parked in the Indian owned/operated lot and walked across the border into Mexico; our first ever visit to our southern neighbor. We found it interesting that no one checked us on entry.

Los Algodones is an interesting and unusual little town. It exists because of tourists from north of the border and has been developed to serve some specific needs of those visitors. It has the highest concentration (and number) of dentists and optical shops of any place on earth and quite a few pharmacies too. Many American and Canadian RVers come to this area during the winter months not only for the warm, dry climate, but for annual dental work, eye exams, glasses, and both prescription and over-the-counter drugs. The vast majority of them park on the U. S. side and walk across the border.

We walked the streets of Los Algodones for an hour or more and finally settled at the Pueblo Viejo restaurant for lunch. Linda and Marilyn had bean burritos and bottled mineral water. I made the riskier choice and had a green salad and deep fried peppers. The peppers were thinly sliced jalapeños mixed with sliced onions. Linda and Marilyn had some too, but between the three of us we did not finish them; too hot. At least they were authentic! Puerto Viejo was the #2 rated restaurant on Trip Advisor and everything we read said the town was safe, including the food. (The #1 rated restaurant was a sushi bar.)

The restaurant was just across the street from the port of entry so we walked over there and got in line behind a couple of hundred other people. It took 30 – 40 minutes to reach the customs agent, but the sidewalk was shaded by an overhanging sunscreen and lined with benches so it was comfortable enough. When it was finally our turn we each cleared customs in less than a minute and were finally back the U.S.A. We got to use our credit card size passport cards for the first time.

We drove back to Yuma and found the major outdoor shopping mall where I stopped at Best Buy to look for a lens hood and cap for my Sony alpha kit/zoom lens (DT 3.5-5.6/18-70mm) but they did not have any compatible products.

The drive home up US-95 was very different than the drive down. The clouds and fog were gone and we had a clear view of the mountains to either side of the valley. Once we were north of the U. S. Army Proving Grounds the land to the east of the highway was part of the KOFA a National Wildlife Refuge, one of the largest in the country at over 650,000 acres. (KOFA stands for “King OF Arizona, a large mine that once operated in this area.) Between the Proving Grounds and the BLM land south of Quartzsite there are four roads that lead east into the refuge. Overnight camping is permitted within 100 feet of the roads unless otherwise posted, but we saw very little evidence of anyone out there. It is, however, a large, remote, area without any services so it only appeals to a certain kind of boondocker, such as those seeking solitude and a semi-wilderness experience. I say “semi-” because if you can drive there in a 40′ motor home, or a pickup truck pulling a 35′ 5th wheel trailer, it is not wilderness by definition.

About 20 miles south of Q we turned off onto the KOFA NWR road leading to the Palm Canyon trailhead. The canyon is a huge crevice in the 5,000 foot tall mountain and is home to the only indigenous Palm trees in Arizona. The trailhead was another seven (7) miles in from the highway and the trail into the canyon was a half mile hike from there, so we will come back another time earlier in the day and do that. The sun was getting lower in the western sky and the top of the very large mountain to our east was obscured by clouds so the situation was setting up for the possibility of good photographs. We drove in about 3 miles (at 10 – 15 MPH) and then pulled off the road at a good vantage point to take photos. We were rewarded for our decision as the sun bathed the mountains in glorious, warm light.

Although the road was generally good gravel and clearly defined we wanted to leave the refuge and get back to the coach while it was still daylight. As often happens the sunset lingered and the colors deepened as we drove. One of the challenges with shooting sunsets is that if you hang in there until it is over, you have to pack up your gear and extract yourself from the location in the dark. Unless, of course, you are backpacking and have already pitched your tent right there. The same goes for sunrise photography, only in reverse.

Back at the coach we had various snacks for dinner. Butch brought the mail over and we chatted for a few minutes. I worked on several e-mails from Gary at BCM, and Bob from our FMCA Freethinkers chapter. I transferred photos from my camera to my computer and backed them up to the NAS. I then used MS-ICE to create a couple of panoramas from today’s trip and used FIV to post-process them along with a photo of the mountain at sunset. By the time I was done it had been a very long, but interesting, productive, and satisfying day.

View looking north from the 1875 Yuma Terriorial Prison State Park, Yuma, AZ.

2014/01/28 (W) Boomerville

After a light breakfast Linda and Marilyn drove to the local Farmers Market and also spent a little time looking around Desert Gardens. Linda bought some asparagus and a Romanesco brocciflower, which is a cross between broccoli and cauliflower. It grows in a fractal manor based on a Fibonacci number sequence which makes it visually very interesting.

While they were gone I worked on survey items for the FMCA NEC member education survey and suggested a minor change to the seminar categorization spreadsheet that Jim A. had prepared. I had planned to work on my blog posts for the third week of October (2014) but did not get to those before lunch.

After lunch Linda and I drove out to the BLM Scaddam 14-day area east of town and found the site where Boomerville was set up all last week. Most of the rigs had pulled out. Many of them were also geocachers and moved to the Roadrunner area south of town. We were looking for Bill Stewart and Lynn Pearlmutter from our FMCA Freethinkers chapter and finally spotted their Tiffin Phaeton. We sat and chatted for over an hour and then headed back to camp where Marilyn had been re-treating in our absence. I think it has been a good visit for her.

I worked on consolidating seven blog posts from the third week of October while Linda started preparing dinner. For Marilyn’s final dinner meal (dare I say ‘last supper’) Linda made her mock stroganoff. No, she did make Marilyn mock her stroganoff, she made a vegan version of stroganoff and served it over white rice, the way I like it. She also steamed the Romanesco brocciflower. The taste and texture was mostly cauliflower-like so I seasoned my pieces with a little white vinegar, which is the way I like my cauliflower.

While the ladies played Scrabble online I worked on the blog post and got the pictures selected and edited. I was up very late again but I got it posted before I went to bed. I was also having trouble logging in to RVillage using the Google Chrome browser. I tried Firefox and got in without difficulty and was able to navigate the site. Remembering that Butch had a similar problem a couple of weeks ago with a different website, I cleared the browsing history (cache) for the last week and tried again. That resolved the problem, at least for now. RVillage support had indicated that they were having login issues with the site, so my browser may have cached a bad page. I primarily use Chrome to browse, so the bad page had probably not been cached in Firefox.

I spent some time on e-mails dealing with an issue we have in our FMCA Freethinkers chapter. I updated Piriform CCleaner on my computer and ran it. I then opened Piriform Defraggler, checked for updates, and started it. It said the remaining time was “> 1 day” so I let it run and went to bed.

Although it was late I worked on the draft of my blog post for yesterday as I had only had time to outline it on my iPad. I then worked on this post. Even though I am still way behind in uploading posts to our WordPress website I have to write them each day or I lose the details. It also takes a fair amount of time, and if I get behind I risk not being able to catch up. I don’t have to do this at all, of course, but it’s something I want to do and enjoy doing. I just don’t like being so far behind.

One of the many covered sidewalk market areas in Los Algodones, Mexico.

2015/01/29 (R) The Flying Nun

We have had an excellent visit with Marilyn since she arrived on the 22nd with a nice mix of local activities, distant sight-seeing, and quiet time at home to visit and allow her to read, rest, and contemplate. She flew back to St. Louis, Missouri this afternoon but before she left Linda made vegan blueberry pancakes for brunch.

Marilyn’s flight home was at 4 PM MST from the Phoenix airport, which is over 130 miles east of Quartzsite, so they left at noon to get her there in plenty of time. I stayed home to work and decided to reconcile the financial statements for our FMCA Freethinkers chapter with the copies of the bank statements I received yesterday from the Treasurer, who lives in Chico, California. While I was at it I updated my financial statements and dues analysis worksheets and the master roster. Linda called at 2:30 PM to say she was starting back to Q but that traffic was very heavy and she might not be back until after 5 PM. That proved to be a very accurate estimate.

We had an early dinner that that consisted of a large salad and an equally large glass of Sangria. I continued to work after dinner dealing with e-mails and then editing together the blog posts for October 23 through 29 into a single post. I got the post compiled but it was too late (I was too tired) to select and process photos, much less upload the whole thing to WordPress, so I went to bed.

2015/01/30 (F) Regen Aggravation

Rain was forecast for last night and into today and that forecast turned out to be accurate. It started raining around 11 PM and rained through the night and into mid-late morning. The precipitation rate was never very high but the rain was persistent. Even after it quit raining heavy clouds filled the valley and obscured the mountain tops in all directions. There was a lower chance of showers for this evening after which the system is then supposed to start clearing out.

Marilyn does care for breakfast cereals or things that look, taste, or feel like milk, so we tended to have toast for breakfast while she was here (except when we had vegan cinnamon rolls and vegan blueberry pancakes). This morning we returned to our normal breakfast of granola, fruit juice, and coffee. After breakfast we both had work to do and set both of our laptops up on the dinette table.

Linda got a package yesterday from the bakery via UPS with work papers related to the 12th accounting period of the 2014 fiscal year. This was also the first accounting period in which the bakery was running only on the new software. Linda did the software configuration and conversion in September, October, and November of 2014 and the 12th accounting period corresponds approximately to the month of November.

My “work” was completing my blog post for October 23 – 29, 2014. I selected 10 photographs for the post that were representative of the work described in the narrative, visually interesting, and technically OK. I uploaded the text to WordPress and then uploaded, captioned, and inserted each image. I got finished about the same time Linda got tired of staring at numbers and made pocket pita sandwiches for lunch. She went for a long walk afterwards and I turned my attention to our fresh water system.

I knew we were below 1/3rd of a tank of fresh water based on the monitor in the house systems panel. I checked after lunch and we were at ~1/6th of a tank (~20 gallons). The last time I filled the tank I checked the hardness afterwards and it was higher (3.0 grains per gallon, or gpg) than it had been. After the last regeneration (recharge) it measured 1.5 gpg and continued to give that reading after each of the next few fill ups. (It should have measured 0 gpg but I was not able to get it recharged to that extent.) We have been keeping a log of the dates, gallons, and hardness but I had not yet analyzed the data so I added 100 gallons to the tank. Afterwards I checked the hardness of the water coming out of the softener and it measured 25 gpg, which is the low end of the very hard water range. Oops.

Although Los Algodones, Mexico was crowded and bustling with tourists from north of the border there were many quiet places like this.

I did not want to leave that water in the tank and run it through our plumbing and fixtures, but I had to regenerate the water softener before I could do anything else. I removed the filter from the housing on the input of the water softener. It was brown all the way through from the outer surface to the inside, so it needed to be replaced even though I had just installed it when I did the last regeneration. Quartzsite city water is safe to drink but in addition to being very hard it has a lot of sediment in it. Butch also thinks it is over-chlorinated and Jim L., who qualifies as a local, just doesn’t think it tastes good. The water we drink and cook with in the coach goes through three filters and a softener before it reaches our lips so we do not have any issues with it.

I put the special recharge tube into the filter housing and filled the bottom half of the housing around the outside of the tube with solar salt. I then poured half of a container of Morton table salt (non-iodized) on top of the solar salt. I aligned the center tube with the center of the head and threaded the housing onto the head. I ran water through the filter housing and then through the softener until I got a strong salty taste out of the softener. The instructions that came with the unit say to run water through the filter housing and out the softener until the saltiness is gone, but it gives no indication of how strong or weak the flow should be or how long it should take.

[When salt (NaCl) dissolves in water (H2O) sodium ions become available. The special media in a water softener has an affinity for dissolved ions. Recharging the softener dislodges the calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg) ions from the media and replaces them with sodium (Na) ions as a result of the supersaturated saltwater brine. During normal operation the sodium (Na) ions in the softener are exchanged for the calcium (Ca) and Magnesium (Mg) ions in the water. “Soft” water is not demineralized water, but the sodium (Na) ions do not cause the scale and build up in plumbing systems that the harder calcium and magnesium ions do.]

This is where we ate lunch in Los Algodones, Mexico.

When the water coming out of the softener was very salty I reduced the flow to a small amount and let run. I lost track of exact time, but I eventually shut the flow off, shut off the incoming water, and unscrewed the housing. It still had salt in it; not as much as when I started, but too much to be done.

[It takes a certain quantity of salt to produce enough sodium ions (Na) to completely recharge a softener of some given capacity. Softeners do not treat a certain number of gallons of water before needing to be regenerated; they remove a certain number of grains of hardness based on the design. The harder the water coming in the fewer gallons that can be processed. Softer water in, more gallons processed. When you understand the science involved, it is really quite simple.]

I stirred the salt in an attempt to dissolve it and put the housing and tube back on the head and ran more water through it. One of the problems with this arrangement is that I am starting with very hard water while trying to regenerate a water softener, but there is no easy way around that. The other problems is that I do not have a sediment filter ahead of the softener. If particulates are allowed to enter the softener and accumulate they will reduce and eventually destroy the effectiveness of the ion exchange media. This is a design flaw that is easily remedied by adding another filter housing between the sediment filter and the inlet of the softener. I will probably rig up something like this when I redo the water bay and use a clear housing so I can see when the salt is gone. Assuming, of course, that I do not replace the entire system with one like Butch’s.

After fooling around with this for a while I tested the water coming out of the softener and it was still up around 15 gpg. It appeared that nothing I had done for the last two hours had made any difference. I removed the housing yet again and added an entire 26 oz. container of Morton non-iodized table salt. I ran the water until it came out of the softener very salty and then shut it off.

I set the timer on my phone for one hour and drove down to the Tyson Wells market area on Kuehn Street to buy a T40 GAC (granulated activated carbon) filter from the Water Filter guy. While I was down there I stopped and bought a loaf of Barry’s Basic Bread. When I got back to the coach I ran the water for 30 seconds, shut it off, and set my timer for 20 minutes. I repeated this cycle for another hour and then set an outlet valve on the softener to emit a slow stream and let it continue to run. I periodically tasted the water coming out and eventually it did not have any saltiness. I checked it with a test strip, my third of the day, and it finally tested at 1.5 gpg. Evening was approaching and I once again found myself in the position of having to finish this process in the dark, so I abandoned any hope of getting it fully recharged to zero (0) gpg, if the unit is even capable of that.

I opened the drain valve on the fresh water tank part way and let the entire 120 gallons drain out. I did not like wasting that water, but I did not want it in our system. I also do not like the amount of time and water it seems to take to regenerate our softener, but it’s what we have for now. At least we are parked on gravel so all of the salty water can just soak in without harming anything. In an RV resort with landscaping we would have to be careful not to discharge the brine onto the grass or plants. The salt water is also not great for septic systems, but in sticks-n-bricks homes it usually ends up in one of those two places.

I installed a new 5 micron melt-blown polypropylene sediment filter in the pre-softener housing and screwed it back on to the head. I let filtered water run through the softener and onto the ground to flush any remaining brine out of the tank. While that process was taking place I turned my attention to the post-softener filter.

We have a filter housing built into the water bay of the coach. Water enters the coach through a garden hose connection then (presumably) passes through a check valve before going through the filter. From there it runs throughout the coach to all of the fixtures and the Aqua-Hot. One of the fixtures is the fill valve for the fresh water tank. When the onboard 12VDC water pump is used it simply takes water out of the fresh water tank and pressurizes the entire system the same way the shore line does. The pump has a check valve to prevent the pressure from an external connection from forcing water backwards through the pump.

The filter housing is hidden behind a beauty panel that makes it awkward to access and service but I managed to get the housing loose and to remove it without spilling too much water. The installed filter was just a pleated sediment cartridge but it was basically clean so either sediment was not getting this far or was small enough to pass through. I installed the T40 GAC cartridge and put the housing back on the head. I then turned off the water coming into the softener and connected the output to the hose from the fresh water inlet on the coach. The directions said to flush out the T40 with at least five gallons of tap water before using the water so I filled the kitchen sink half full while running off of the shore line.

I started this process at 1 PM. It was now 6PM and I was finally ready to fill the fresh water tank. The T40 filter cartridge does not have a micron rating but it was a rather snug fit in the housing and the design looks like it could constrain flow rates. I opened the fill valve for the fresh water tank and set my phone timer to 40 minutes.

While the tank was filling I started putting the dump and fill data we have been logging into a spreadsheet. Our softener tank is the same size as Butch and Fonda’s, which is labeled as having a 10,000 grain capacity. Our data indicated that the last 100 gallons we added took our total from 515 to 615 gallons. We knew we had obviously run too much water through the softener based on the first hardness test today, but this data was confirming that we had, at most, a 10,000 grain capacity tank. Given the 25 gpg city water coming out of the tap we will need to regenerate the softener somewhere between 400 and 500 gallons. Given the aggravation involved in trying to recharge our unit I doubt that it will be a long-term solution for us. It simply should not take that much time to do something so simple, especially when it has to be done so often.

At the end of 40 minutes the fresh water tank was 3/4s full so I set the timer for another 10 minutes. With the current filter setup the flow rate into the tank appears to be about 2.5 gallons per minute. The Shur-Flo 4048 pump has a 4 GPM maximum flow rate, so that is another reason we run off the tank rather than the shore line.

By the time the tank was full it was too late to actually cook dinner so Linda heated up an Amy’s Barley Vegetable soup and put out some crackers and peanut butter; easy but delicious.

I worked on this blog post after dinner, spent a little more time with my water usage spreadsheet, dealt with some critical e-mail, and went to bed way too late. But then, I did not have to be up by any certain time and I can take a nap tomorrow if needed.

Palm Canyon at sunset. KOFA National Wildlife Refuge about 20 miles south of Quartzsite, AZ.

2015/01/31 (S) January LTT

The last day of January dawned under cloudy skies. We are well past the midpoint of our first winter in Quartzsite and continuing to enjoy our time here. The “Big Tent” RV Show has been over for a week and the BLM STVAs (free, 14-day limit) have thinned out as the visitors who were here for two weeks surrounding the ‘show’ have moved on. There are still lots of RVs in the BLM LTVAs (fee-based, up to 180 days) but those are longer-term visitors who, like us, are here for ‘the season.’ The commercial RV Parks in town still have healthy occupancy, but the ‘vacancy’ signs are out once again. There are still plenty of vendors set up in the various markets along Kuehn Street and the flea markets along west Main Street are still operating. There is still traffic but not the parade of RVs and gridlock of the previous couple of weeks. There is still lots of activity but the frenzy appears to be over. Experienced visitors have told us that we will notice a gradual slow down as we move through February into March. We will also notice a general warming of temperatures.

A small bird of prey has been active around our campsite for the last few weeks, probably longer, and was finally successful in catching something to eat this morning; at least this was the first time that were aware of it. It took a small bird down by the seed block that attracts various birds and rabbits to our ‘front yard’ and sat where we could see it while it ate. WE identified it as an American Kestrel (Sparrow Hawk) and the small bird it caught was indeed a sparrow. The American Kestrel ranges from 4 to 10 ounces in weight and has a wingspan up to 24 inches with the larger birds being the mature females. It is the only Kestrel native to North America and is the first one we have had a good look at in the wild. It normally eats large insects, small mammals, and lizards, but will take smaller birds if it can, thus the name. They also have the unusual ability to hover given a very slight amount of wind.

We planned to stick around camp this weekend and work on various tasks so after breakfast Linda started a load of laundry. I like laundry day because I get to stay in my sweat clothes while my regular ones get laundered. Between loads Linda continued working on accounting for Butch and Fonda and for the bakery. I prepared a 4-day and a 7-day consolidated blog post and then worked on reformatting and expanding some more survey items for the FMCA national education committee. I received a draft report/recommendation from Jim A. for the seminar classification work we have been doing so I went through it, made minor corrections, and added several comments for his consideration.

Linda can only sit for so long so around 2 PM she made mock deli meat sandwiches for lunch with vegan cheese slices, lettuce, vegan mayo, and honey mustard on Barry’s Basic Bread. She then went for a long walk while I continued to work at computer-based tasks. She made it to the market area at Kuehn Street and Central Avenue and bought another loaf of Barry’s Basic Bread as we worked our way through the one we bought yesterday fairly quickly.

Butch installed his new TireTraker TPMS sensors yesterday. (I still need to install ours.) In the process he discovered that his Chevy Suburban spare tire only had 14 PSI of air pressure in it. Worse yet the valve stem on his bus spare was too damaged to get the sensor on. But the real problem was that one of the two attachments for the front bus bumper broke off. Four bolts had rusted through and snapped. This morning he looked at what would be involved it drilling out the pieces that were stuck in the threaded holes and decided that was not a job he could do on the road. He bought some metal strap and fashioned two loops around the front of the bumper and behind the mounting plate and bolted the ends of each to draw them in tight. When he was done the bumper closed and opened just fine and aligned well with the body when closed. I joked that this might be another “Long-Term Temporary” repair, or “LTT” for short, and suggested that we should coin the phrase.

Linda made a new dish for dinner, Savory Orange Roasted Tofu and Asparagus. As the name indicates, it consisted of tofu cubes roasted in a mixture of miso, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil to which asparagus was added while roasting continued. A sauce is made from miso, balsamic vinegar, orange juice, and orange zest and mixed in to the roasted ingredients just before serving. She also made Farro with a little oil, salt, and pepper and served it as a side. It may be the first time we have had Farro all by itself rather than as an ingredient in a dish. It really is a wonderful grain. Clementine orange sections and Franzia Fruity Red Sangria completed the meal.

A Romanesco Boccliflower.

Towards the end of dinner I had a call from Neal Sunderland wanting to know if we knew of anyplace in Q where he and Nora could get prime rib (of beef) for dinner. An odd request to make of a vegan, perhaps, but we only just met during the Eagles International bus rally and he did not remember how we eat. Linda got on an iPad and did her best to find out what was in town. The problem with Q is that a lot of the restaurants close at 8 PM, or sooner if they run out of food. They were already driving when Neal called and he spotted a sign at the Stagecoach Restaurant on Main Street (B-10) for a prime rib special so they pulled in to the parking lot. I heard the hostess in the background tell Neal that they were out of the special. They had 37 of them available for dinner and they were all sold. Yeah, Q is like that.

I have been reading up on the WordPress.com Jetpack: Site Administration feature. It sounds very cool as it would allow me to manage multiple WordPress websites via my WordPress.com account. This includes self-hosted sites, which all four of mine are, plus WordPress.com hosted sites. I have the Jetpack installed on all four Websites but I have never activated the Site Management feature, which must be done from within the admin panel. I decided to activate it tonight on the FMCA Freethinkers website, hosted by iPower.com. The activation failed and took down the /WP-admin/control panel. The site is still there (structure/functionality/content) but I cannot get to the dashboard to do anything. I sent a support request to iPower and cc:d Bob Pelc, the President of the FMCA Freethinkers, who is the owner of the clubs iPower account. I also sent a support request to Jetpack and an e-mail to Larry (K8UT) seeking his thoughts on the situation. This was not how I wanted to end my day but there was little more I could do late on a Saturday evening, so I went to bed.

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.

2014/09/26 (F) Hope Is Not A Strategy

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Linda was up at 7:00 AM, I was up at 7:15 AM, and Madeline was up at 7:45 AM. Marilyn got up later. Given a choice she’s not a morning/breakfast person. Linda got up first to prepare the batter for her fabulous vegan blueberry pancakes which she planned to serve with fresh fruit and real maple syrup.

I powered up my iPad2 and discovered that Apple had released iOS 8.0.2. Apparently I was not the only person having some issues with the release, like sluggish response and a Bluetooth keyboard that quit working properly and then quit working altogether. I tested the keyboard with my laptop computer last night and it worked fine, so I knew there wasn’t anything wrong with it. I downloaded the iOS update and everything was back to normal (once I figured out how to re-pair the keyboard). With any luck perhaps WordPress will also issue a maintenance release today and fix the completely broken drag-n-drop feature of the media gallery. As Deb Wahlstrom said once in a workshop, “hope is not a strategy,” but when things are completely beyond your control hope is sometimes all you have.

Linda tried to use the griddle that fits over the oblong center burner of the new G. E. kitchen range to cook the pancakes but forgot to turn it down from the preheat setting, which produces a LOT of heat. It burned the first pancakes firmly to the griddle. Madeline was already in her high chair waiting for her breakfast, so Linda grabbed a non-stick frying pan and cooked the pancakes in that. The fact that the griddle and the preheat feature are both new and that there was a certain pressure to get Madeline her breakfast was not an ideal combination for a first attempt at using the griddle. I doubt that she will make that mistake again, and the frying-pan-cakes were still very good. The fresh fruit turned out to be bananas, but that was OK; we all like bananas.

After breakfast I played with Madeline while Linda cleaned up from breakfast. Karen called from Bratcher Electric to let us know that Brandon had called in sick and she needed to reschedule our generator conversion and service for Monday between 1 and 3 PM if that would work for us. It was not ideal from my perspective as I was thinking about taking the bus to Butch and Fonda’s on Monday, but that could obviously wait until Tuesday or later. If necessary I could delay taking it until after the GLCC Surplus and Salvage Rally.

I waited until Marilyn got up at 9:15 AM to make the coffee; we all like our morning coffee. Linda was busy with Madeline by that point so Marilyn cooked her own breakfast. There was enough batter left for two pancakes. She’s always very helpful that way when she comes to visit. We often have to insist that she just sit, relax, be our guest, and let us take care of things. It’s really not a bother; we like having company and we do not expect them to work while they are here. Of course, if they insist on helping with the dishes, who are we to deny them the joy of being of service?

Marilyn started packing at 10:45 AM while Linda gathered up Madeline’s things. When it was time to load the car for the trip to Ann Arbor my job was to hold Madeline’s hand (actually, she held my finger) and get her out the front door, down the new steps/sidewalk, and over to the car. (Hey, grandpa-ing is serious work.) Although she understood that she was returning to her house where daddy and mommy would feed and play with her, she wasn’t quite ready to leave. She and I “marched” up and down the driveway several times before she was ready/willing to let Grandma Linda put her in her car seat. She is now big enough that the seat gets installed facing forward, which is a very big deal as she can now see where she’s going in life instead of where she has been. Marilyn rode in the back to keep her entertained on the drive down.

The weather this week has been spectacular; a classic late September in Michigan with lows around 50, highs around 75, clear blue skies and light breezes. I shut off the various thermostats and opened up the house. I spent the early afternoon editing blog posts from the last couple of weeks and then off-loaded photos from our Sony alpha 100 SLR, organized them, and backed them up. I stopped for a bite of lunch and then decided to have another go at the lawnmower. If I cannot get it started I will have to take it somewhere and have it repaired. 🙁

I had already installed the new spark plug last night and that did not fix the problem. I dumped the gas tank out into an open tub and put some of the fresh gas I bought last night into the tank. I took the tub to some of our woods a good distance from our drinking water well and spread it around on some leaves. Most of it will evaporate rather than soak in. Not the most environmentally sound thing to do, but a lot safer than an open tub of gasoline.

Before I tried to start the engine I checked the back discharge chute, out of habit, to make sure the mulching insert was in place. It was but there was a lot of dried grass as well and it had obviously not been cleaned out the last time it was used. There was also a lot of fuzzy material mixed in with the grass, a sure sign that a mouse had taken up residence there at one time. I removed the insert and shook it off into the tub and discovered that it still had a mouse in it. The mouse was quite dead and very stiff but did not have any obvious injuries and did not emit any odor. It was in surprisingly good conditions, so perhaps being encased in the dried grass and fuzz helped preserve it. It was not trapped so it is a mystery why it stayed in there and died. The mower was in our garage all winter, and although it got very cold (-20 F) the mouse would not have been trapped in the garage either; there are gaps around the doors that would easily allow a field mouse to come and go. (Now that we have the garage furnace, sealing the doors is on my project list.)

With the discharge chute cleaned up the mower started on the first pull !!! (This is something Honda has bragged about in the advertising in the past.) I let it run for a while on high throttle to warm it up and make sure it had fresh gas all the way through the fuel system. I then brought the throttle back to idle to let it cool off and stabilize and then shut it off. I did not think it was going to start so I was not wearing my safety goggles or gloves. I usually wear hearing protectors as well, but I could not find them. (I realized later they were probably in the construction equipment tub we took with us last summer. I will look there tomorrow.) I topped off the tank with fresh fuel and it started on the first pull again. The new spark plug is a more aggressive design that is supposed to spark more easily and that may have helped. Whatever the reason, I like how easily it now starts.

I spent an hour cutting the grass in the immediate vicinity of the house. I focused in particular on the areas that Keith does not get with his riding mower and areas that were disturbed (destroyed) and re-seeded as part of the landscaping work and re-seeded again by me (twice). The new grass is coming in fairly well at this point although there are still a few thin spots. And even though Keith mowed most of this new grass on his last visit it was getting tall again. I was surprised how moist much of the grass was, especially in areas that are now mostly shaded throughout the day, as we have not had any rain in the last week. Keith had mentioned the last time he was here that the grass was very moist; “…more like April/spring grass than September/fall grass.” I did not get everything mowed. I still have to do the two slopes by the retaining walls in the back, which are steep and physically demanding even with a self-propelled mower, and most of the west end of the house. It will take me at least another hour to finish but I had done enough for today and wanted to relax for a little while before Linda got home. Besides, it will be there tomorrow, and it should be a nice day to work outside.

Linda called around 4:35 PM and left messages letting me know that she had dropped Marilyn at the airport and was starting for home. That drive would take close to an hour in light traffic, so I figured I would not see her before 6 PM. She pulled in the driveway at 6:10 PM.

We had three left over salads for dinner: chickpea; Farro with cranberries, and; wild rice with apples and raisins. Easy and delightful. Marilyn texted Linda several times to let us know her travel status. Her flight was delayed almost an hour but eventually took off and got her safely back to St. Louis, Missouri. We were both tired and turned in early, but I got my second wind after I located a service manual online for a model of Aqua-Hot that is very similar to the one in our bus and started reading about how to diagnose what might be wrong with our unit. Based on the symptoms my current best guess is a stuck fuel valve or defective fuel valve solenoid.

2014/07/31 (W) Wrapping Up?

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We were tired and went to bed early last night. Naturally, that meant we were up earlier than usual this morning. Linda made her fabulous vegan blueberry pancakes to get us fueled up for a long day of work. The landscapers were also here reasonably early and had a very productive day. More on that later.

Our first task this morning was installing a switch controlled dual LED floodlight fixture on the back of the garage above and to the left of the door (when viewed from the outside). The location was determined by the construction of the rear wall of the garage. I measured and re-measured the location of the cable hole to make sure the surface mounted junction box ended up in the center (vertically) of one of the siding boards. I drilled a 1/2″ hole through the back (north) wall of the garage just to the right of the back door (when viewed from inside the garage) and just below the top plate. I ran a 14-2+g (NM) cable (that I had previously prepped and left in the wall cavity) through the hole in the wall and then through the hole in the back of the junction box. This was the part of the north wall where I had to remove concrete backer board, a burned 2×4, and singed insulation, so the studs and back side of the exterior plywood sheathing were exposed and accessible.

We moved around to the outside and I caulked the hole around the wire, put a generous band of while caulk around the hole on the back of the junction box, and a half circle of caulk around the top back edge of the box and mounted it to the outside of the house with the center knockout centered over the hole in the wall. I installed the dual LED light fixture and put a bead of caulk around the top half of the junction box where it met the fixture. (The heads of the cheap machine screws that now come with electrical fixtures and plates strip very easily making it difficult to get a tight fit.) I caulked the wire hole from the inside and then dressed and secured the cable. I turned the circuit breaker on, and checked for proper operation of the switch and light fixture. It was all good. I like it when that happens.

Our next task was to install three round blue plastic junction boxes for bare bulb light fixtures; two for the garage attic and one for the garage end of the library attic. I was originally going to install a switch near the top of the fold-down ladder to control the lights and run power to it from a new ceiling light fixture in the utility closet, but we came up with a better solution.

There was a three-gang electrical box in the east wall of the garage just inside the door from the library. It had two switches installed and the cover plate had openings for a duplex outlet in the third position, but no device installed there. We thought this would be a better place for the switch—as there was already power to the box—if we could get a wire through the wall from the attic to the box. The drywall is missing from the lower half of the wall so we had good access to the underside of the box. (The drywall was removed by the previous owner to repair the frozen hot water baseboard heat pipes.) I checked in the attic and it looked like we had a good shot at making this work. The icing on the cake was that we could install a switch with a pilot light that is designed to fit in a duplex outlet cover plate. Not only would it be convenient, it would provide a visible indication that the lights were on.

I did the attic work while Linda took care of the garage end of this task, passing me parts and tools as needed and helping feed NM cable. We ran 14-2+g (120V, 15A) wire from the attic through the east wall to the existing outlet box. I pulled the cable over to the location by the library attic, mounted the box, cut the cable, unsheathed it, stripped the wires, ran it into the box, and secured it to the truss. I repeated that process with the end of the free cable. The plastic light fixtures I bought very conveniently feature pass-through wiring terminals so all I had to do was hook up the cables, fasten the fixture to the box, and screw in the 100 W rugged service bulb.

I repeated this process for the next box/fixture which I positioned just to the west side of garage ridge 1/4 of the way in from the front (south) wall. Finally, I repeated most of this process for the third and final (for now) box/fixture which I positioned on the east side of the ridge 1/4 of the way in from the back (north) wall. Somewhere in the middle of all that we stopped for lunch.

With the attic lights installed I needed to pull the wire that supplied power to the outlets in the west half of the garage out of the rear/north wall and up into the attic. Easier said than done. The cable was originally part of the circuit that powers the outlets in the northeast wall of the garage (and now powers the new floodlights on the back wall) but I disconnected it a week ago knowing that I wanted to feed it from a separate breaker. The cable went through a hole in the top plate and I discovered that the bottom cord of the gable truss had been set partially covering this hole with the cable pinched under it. I cut the cable from above and ran it into a plastic switch box. Linda was then able to pull the tail end loose from underneath. I will run a new cable from the sub-panel to the junction box after I get more pressing work done.

On that note I also realized today that I do not have to get the cables for the new circuits through the top plates above the sub-panel, which was going to be difficult-to-impossible. The sub-panel is surface mounted and I already planned to box around it. With the supply air duct coming out of the new HVAC unit and running straight out along the ceiling above the utility closet door I will have 16 inches of clear ceiling space. The sub-panel is about four inches deep so I will have about three inches of ceiling above the panel and in front of the top plates where I can run new cable into the attic. Brilliant!

Our last attic task for today was to disconnect two telephone wires in the wall cavity to the right of the sub-panel, pull them up into the attic, reroute them, and reconnect them. One of them turned out to be the main phone/data line coming into the house from the AT&T box at the southwest corner of the garage. There was a telephone wall outlet to the right of the old sub-panel that this line ran to before continuing on to the rest of the house. The wires are very small gage, are unshielded, and the cable is draped through the attic over multiple 120 VAC cables. I need to replace this with a single run of much better (shielded) cable when I have time. Perhaps we will get less static on the phone and faster Internet data transfer rates. (Nah, probably not. It will still be an AT&T landline.)

While I started working on re-wiring the three-gang box in the east garage wall, Linda made a run to Lowe’s to get a 32′ roll of 16″ x 3.5″ (R-13) insulation and a switch with a pilot light. I got the box rewired, we energized the circuit, and everything worked. Yippee!

The landscapers today consisted of Steve (the owner), Spencer (his nephew), and Tommy. Steve used the excavator to place four large boulders on the sides of the new front steps. That was the last work to be done in front that required the excavator so he used it to back blade (level off) and compact (with the bucket) the pull-through driveway. He was not able to return it to its existing condition but did the best he could with the equipment he has.

He took time out to use his chain saw to cut down a dead pine tree, cut it up into 4′ lengths, and carry the pieces back to his truck with the excavator. He then used it to fill/grade a large low spot just southwest of the garage. This was the route they used to get the excavator to the back yard. It was also where all of the construction debris was piled until yesterday, and the excavator really tore the ground up in that area over the last four weeks.

Spencer and Tommy worked in the back hand-grading the slopes beyond the retaining walls and the area that was trenched for the drain tiles. They worked in a layer of good topsoil, spread grass seed, and covered it with straw.

Steve plans to lay the brick pavers for the front sidewalk tomorrow and have the whole project wrapped up by the end of the day. It looked like they were on track to accomplish that until Spencer informed us that there was apparently a leak in the drain tile somewhere in “the valley.” Leak was an understatement; we had an area at least 8′ x 12′ that had turned into a pond.

It appeared that the drain line for the sump pump was somehow discharging its water at this point rather than it flowing all the way down to the drains at the back of the yard. Spencer dug up some of the line coming down the slope and found several holes on the top side, but it did make sense that these were the source of the problem. Our guess is that that line, which is not one continuous piece of drain tile, has become disconnected at the valley floor allowing all of the water to escape at that point, and/or crushed, causing the water to back up through a connector (which is only designed for water to flow one way). Fortunately we kept the original PVC discharge extension pipe from the sump pump outlet so we temporarily disconnected the buried drain line and reconnected the extension pipe.

Whatever the cause of the leak, we are sure it will be found and fixed, we’re just not sure that will happen by the end of the day tomorrow. I had thought about “testing” the system by using a garden hose to put a significant volume of water into each of the drain lines. As of now, I will definitely be doing that.

Our final task was insulating a section of the rear/north wall. We got three of the four plus cavities filled and ran out of steam. Besides, it was dinner time. Linda made one of her “go-to” dishes; angel hair pasta with onions, garlic, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, basil, and mixed baby greens lightly sautéed in olive oil. This is a dish she can throw together from ingredients on hand without a recipe and it is always delicious. We had a small glass of Leelanau Cellars Summer Sunset wine while she cooked and a small glass of Meiomi Pinot Noir with the dish. No salad and no dessert; just a great pasta dish and nice wine. I got cleaned up and we watched the first episode of season five of Doc Martin. As we were drifting off to sleep we thought we heard the distant howl of a coyote.

2014/07/05 (S) Re-Search

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Contractors who do outside work, such as excavators, builders, and landscapers are at the mercy of the weather, so they work when they can, and when they can work, they often put in long hours. For those of us who made our living doing “white collar” work for companies with paid holidays, the 4th of July often meant a 3- or 4-day weekend. For other kinds of workers, the 4th of July is a day off; one day, and for yet others (think retail) it is just another workday. It doesn’t matter that it fell on a Friday this year. The landscapers couldn’t work on Thursday because of the overnight rain. No work means no pay. Saturday July 5th, however, was forecast to be great weather for working outside, and with sunny skies and no rain since Thursday, our job site had dried out sufficiently to allow people and machines to work. Alas, the holiday spirit was with them and they did not show up first thing this morning like I thought they might.

Since grand-daughter Madeline spent her second night in a row with us last night she was still here this morning. Consequently we did not go to our ham radio club breakfast in South Lyon like we usually do on Saturday morning. Madeline woke up hungry and Grandma Linda had her bottle warmed up and ready to go. She had also prepped all of the ingredients for her yummy vegan blueberry pancakes. Madeline had a little banana and some fresh blueberries while grandma cooked the pancakes and I made the coffee. We all enjoyed our breakfast.

Madeline Eloise sitting on our fake rock in our front yard (it’s the cover for our well).

After breakfast we played and read and went outside to walk around in the driveway. Our son called and we figured out who was going to travel where and when to get Madeline back home. He was working on a project to rebuild their front porch/steps and was involved in painting wood pieces prior to assembling them, so we agreed to drive Madeline to their house in Ann Arbor in time for a light lunch before her usual nap time. That also allowed us to stop at the Whole Foods market near their house on our way out of town. A Whole Foods market is the only thing we do not have in the Brighton/Howell/Hartland area that we truly miss. We would shop there several times a week if we had one nearby.

I managed to sneak away to the basement occasionally to do a load of laundry and install 126 updates on our Linux computer. The updates involved file downloads totaling just over of 310+ MB so I started the process and let it run. We get an effective download speed from our AT&T High Speed Internet (HSI) DSL connection of just over 1 Mb/sec or 64 Mb/min. That is roughly 8 MB/min. At that speed, 320 MB takes about 40 minutes to transfer, assuming AT&T doesn’t detect the amount of data being transferred and “throttle” (slow down) the speed. Cell phone companies are known to do this but it is less clear whether AT&T does that sort of thing with their landline services.

We got back to the house at 2:15 PM. Linda developed a headache while we were out, so she took some meds, put the groceries away, and laid down to rest. There was no sign of the landscapers and no phone call, so there was no chance at that point that they would show up today. That was OK with us; it is a holiday weekend and it was their idea to come work today, not ours; I just said it was OK if that’s what they wanted to do. Apparently they didn’t. The one thing I was looking forward to was having Steve show me how to operate the Kobelco sk35sr-3 excavator and then practicing operating it by removing concrete blocks, bricks, downed trees, and other detritus from the woods by the road southwest of our house. Just behind these woods is where they are piling all of the construction debris anyway, so I would be able to position the excavator to allow me to grab most of the trash out of the woods and then swing it over and deposit it on the pile. Maybe Monday?

Yesterday I posted a question to the WordPress.org support forum for the Jetpack plug-in and I got a reply a couple of hours later that directly answered my question. I wanted to install/activate the Jetpack on more than one self-hosted website and needed to know if I could use a single WordPress.com account or if I needed a separate account for each site? I was glad to find out that I only needed the one account that I already have. The Jetpack plug-in is massive overkill for what I need to accomplish immediately, but some of the reviews suggested that it is so comprehensive it may be the last plug-in I ever have to install. That is unlikely for a number of reasons, and a bit contrary to the open source nature of WordPress and the international community of developers that support it, but the plug-in does have 33 different “components.” For most of those features there are other plug-ins available–in some cases lots of them—but this provides everything in a neat package with its own special place on the admin panel menu.

Linda was feeling better after a long, much-needed nap but did not feel like cooking. She picked up ingredients at Whole Foods today to make mock beef stroganoff but decided to make it tomorrow. Our go-to for no-prep meals are the various frozen products from Amy’s. We try to always have a few in the freezer for occasions when Linda does not have the time or interest to prepare a meal from scratch. Tonight we had the lasagna. Linda wanted some fresh greens with dinner but did not feel like making a salad so she used a bed of mixed greens as a base for the lasagna. If that sounds a bit strange, all I can say is that it was very nice for both taste and texture.

I spent more time this evening investigating the WordPress Jetpack plug-in, the result of which was that I deferred installing and activating it. The attraction of this plug-in is that the Carousel feature works with the existing WP Gallery shortcode(s). That means it works retroactively with every page and post containing a WP Gallery and that I would continue to create galleries they way I always have using the native WP Gallery functionality. That sounds like exactly what I need, except that on further investigation I started seeing comments about banner ads, and a feature that allows website/blog visitors to comment on individual images with no easy way to disable it. The workaround involves custom CSS code. Ugh.

I kept looking and found a plug-in where the “author” had simply “forked” (extracted) the code for the Carousel function from the Jetpack plug-in and offered it as a separate plug-in. Ignoring whether that was even ethical, some of the reviews suggested that it did not work correctly and that support issues were not being resolved. I need something more reliable and better supported so I kept looking and found a very extensive plug-in that was free and had been downloaded over 1,000,000 times! Now that has to be a great plug-in, right? Maybe; maybe not. The reviews were very mixed and many seemed to complain about the constant “tinkering” the author does with the plug-in, issuing updates every 3 – 4 days.

If I was willing to spend money for a plug-in my options would be greatly expanded, but I have looked at those as well and they all have mixed reviews. The leading contender is the NextGEN Gallery plug-in, but the biggest downside with all of these gallery plug-ins is that they do not work with the native WP Gallery shortcodes which, in turn, would require me to rebuild existing galleries from within the plug-in. The ones that I find the most annoying are the ones with a free version that turns out to just be a teaser; the features I need are always in the “pro” or “premium” version. An episode of Doc Martin gave me a needed and entertaining break from my research, which is appropriate in this situation as I have searched for a good image display plug-in before and now I am searching for one again.

2014/05/04 (N) Northwest Winds

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2014/04/22(T) Mockingbird

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2013/12/27 (F) Arcadia FL

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Sandhill cranes at the Turner Agri Civic Center.

We slept in this morning and did not get up until sunrise; very late for us. I made a big pot of coffee and then went for a stroll to take some photographs in the early morning light. I took photos in the afternoon light too, and I have assembled a gallery of images as a second post for today. When I got back Linda made vegan blueberry pancakes with real Maple syrup and vegan breakfast sausage patties. She does not use these fake meat products much anyone, but occasionally we like to have a more “traditional” breakfast. Starting Sunday the rally provides coffee, juice, bagels, toast, and other breakfast items every morning.

After breakfast we drove into town to find a 10-32 Nylok (stop) nut and other items that had been accumulating on our list. Our Garmin 465T GPS found the Walmart just 2 miles SE of the rally venue. We spotted a Tractor Supply Company and a Do It Best Hardware store on the way to Walmart and made note of other local businesses as we passed by. We found everything on our list at Walmart except for two items, one of which was the stop nut, so we stopped at the hardware store on the way back to the Turner Agri Civic Center. Stop nut and drain stopper in hand, we started back to base camp and remember another item that we had not written down. A quick U-turn back to the Sweetbay Market by the hardware store and we found a small (pocketsize) spiral bound notebook. I needed something I could carry around easily to record various details of the rally for my BCM article.

Back at the coach I replaced the two regular nuts I had used to fix the main patio awning yesterday with a Nylok stop nut. We let the awning sit for a while longer to make sure it was dry and then rolled it back up. We are parked with the passenger side of the bus facing north so the awning wasn’t providing any shade but merely blocked our view of most of the rally.

We then decided to give the coach a quick wash. The temperature was around 70 degrees F and there was a high overcast; plenty of light but not a blazing direct sunlight. We closed up the roof vents and windows, got out the hoses, sprayer, collapsible bucket, brush, dish soap, and microfiber cloths and went to work. The coach had picked up a film of road grime over the last 8 days and 1,300 miles and unlike most campgrounds, there was no problem with washing it at our site. We had planned on doing this at the designated RV/Car Wash station at Williston Crossings when we got back, but now we won’t have to. It still needs more hand detailing, but that can be done at our long-term site.

The washing done we opened the coach back up as it was getting warm inside. We had lunch around 1:30 PM; tofu hot dogs with mustard, onions, and relish along with fresh grapes. Apparently this was a comfort food day, but it was also an easy preparation meal. While we were eating I got a call from Chuck Spera. He was on his way from Naples to Ft Meyers and wanted to come to the rally site to visit and check it out. His ETA was still two hours out, so we went for a walk. I then took the camera and went out again as quite a few rigs had arrived during the day.

Barbara was back in Detroit for the holidays, so once we knew Chuck was coming we knew we would be going out for dinner and did some online research. There are plenty of places to eat in Arcadia, but it is not a dining destination. The Magnolia Seafood Grill appeared to be our best option; rated number one on Trip Advisor. Chuck arrived at 4:25 PM as estimated. Linda opened a bottle of our 2009 Egri Merlot and we settled in for a chat. He had a mobile mechanic (Mustafa, seriously) in Naples replace the water pump, connecting hoses, and thermostat on his Detroit Diesel 8V92TA engine (the same one we have) that morning and had to go to Ft. Meyers to return the old water pump to avoid the $165 core charge.

As the sun set and it started to get dark it also got very cool as there had been a strong breeze from the northeast all day. We headed for the heart of Arcadia’s historic district and found the restaurant. Linda and I split a very nice salad and a very mediocre pasta marinara. Chuck had a blackened Corvina (Cilus gilberti, similar to sea bass) with a baked potato and broccoli all of which he said was excellent. Our waitress, Jackie, was delightful and attentive. She even had the cook prepare our garlic bread with olive oil instead of butter. Chuck had a 90 mile drive back to Pelican Lake in Naples, so concluded our visit around 7:30 PM, made plans to meet again, and went our separate ways. We rounded out our meal back at the rig with some vegan chocolate cake and settled in to read, process photographs, work a few puzzles, and watch a little TV before going to bed.

The Phase Place

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Tag Archives: vegan blueberry pancakes

2015/11/09 (M) Clever Mouse

2015/10/10 (S) The New Camera

2015/07/19 (N) Another Buddy Visit

2015/07/05 (N) Return to HFM

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

2015/03/22-23 (N-M) Why Ajo

2015/01/27-31 (T-S) Q 2015 W5

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

2014/09/26 (F) Hope Is Not A Strategy

2014/07/31 (W) Wrapping Up?

2014/07/05 (S) Re-Search

2014/05/04 (N) Northwest Winds

2014/04/22(T) Mockingbird

2013/12/27 (F) Arcadia FL