Wednesday, January 16, 2013

WMHA Rally is History

We finished the rally by cleaning up the large lot on the south side of Dr Carron Road with Anita Price and Luke Rinehimer.  There was no scrap of paper, cigarette butt or dead battery left after we finished.  Cool Judy had checked out the extended parking options while we tootled around in our golf cart filling our garbage bags, and then we moved to our new spaces.

While we were parked during the rally we noticed some water that was leaking into our bay.  There was no time to take care of it while the rally was going on so after the move we attacked the problem.  Tom pulled out the drawer in the bay and I crawled inside.  I was able to twist around, over the rail and into the ‘bowels’ of the rig where the water heater, and inverter are stored. (Why would Monaco put water sources that could leak right next to all the electrical equipment?)  I discovered the source of the leak, the gray ‘T’ fitting where it was screwed into the brass ‘T’ fitting. 

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Now where can we get a replacement for the gray ‘T’?  Nope, Luke did not have a single ‘T’ that we can use.  So we all jumped into the Jeep and picked up a ‘T’ and a couple of nipples and went to the Fisherman’s restaurant for dinner.  Boy was that a good choice. The Chivichi was outstanding as was my fish tacos.  Everyone else was very happy with their choices too.

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Later that evening I revisited the cave under the motorhome and installed the new ‘T’ with new nipples all wrapped with Teflon tape.  No leaks. Big bruise though.

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We left Indio for Quartzsite on Tuesday morning, and though a little windy, the trip was an easy one.

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We are having some repairs made at Lifestyles RV in Q so we did not want to make the long drive on a rough dirt road over to Boomerville since we will be having the work done on the rig Friday. Things are starting to look pretty busy near the big tent.

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We drove up Hwy 95 for Propane at the Pit Stop then drove on to Plomosa Road and parked at a nice open area.  The view was nice as we watched RV’s move onto the BLM land.  We did notice another small leak in the bay and then during the cold night suddenly our heater sounded like a rock was spinning around inside of it.  It was VERY loud and we shut the heater off immediately.

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We had decided to move closer to Lifestyles RV for the repair and because it was closer to the Escapee Happy Hour and the Local Geocacher’s Event.

We drove west on Dome Rock then south on Cholla Road.  We entered the parking area and  Tom avoided the deep rut as we entered, but then things started to go south when we heard a scraping sound and the warning beepers started going off.  We pulled around to a flat spot and turned off the engine.  The warning lights indicated Low Air.  Tom walked out to the road and saw the deep groove in the pavement.  Back at the rig he checked the air bags – no damage.  He checked the tow bar.  The problem he found was a broken air connection at the tow bar.

OK, problem 1, AOTHER leak in the bay.  Problem 2 heater not working.  Problem 3 no air pressure, no brakes, no leveling.

Yup, I was back in the bay cave– this time the leak was from the pipe leading to to the water pump. I unscrewed the pipe, but the water kept flowing even though the pump was turned off.  It filled a pan 3 times! I had my finger in the pipe and felt like the little boy with his finger in the dike.  Tom discovered there was a siphon out of the fresh water tank and disconnected from there and we finally got the water stopped. 

We left to drop off the flyers for the SKP Geocacher’s rally at the Escapee Happy Hour and then drove to Boomerville to drop off some there too. We were happy to see friends from last year even though we follow most on Facebook or Blogs, there is nothing like hugs in person.  Then to Hanks Hardware for an o-ring for the pipe and an easy-out and plug for the broken air pipe.  O-ring was installed and the water leak was fixed.  However the easy-out would not ease the broken piece of the brass pipe out of the housing, but Tom was able to unscrew the air hose from the back side of the tow housing.  We went back to Hanks and exchanged the plug for a cap. Back to the RV and the air leak was temporarily fixed.  We leveled up and pulled out the slides. 

Next chore was to investigate the heater problem.  We had checked out how to remove the motor from the heater on the internet.  The internet is invaluable to finding out how to fix things that go wrong on the road.

We pulled the blower squirrel cage and found 1/3 of the blades were GONE!  We took it over to Lifestyles RV and low and behold they had them in stock.  The SHOCK was not only were almost half of the blades were gone… HALF of the squirrel cage was missing. The old one is on the left and the new one is on the right. 

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I got it all installed and even got a kiss for my pay from Mr. Westerfield!  So all in all it was a very productive day.  Tomorrow we will be manning Table G at the geocaching event and dinner with friends, Anne and Leroy Willis.  AHHHH, life is again good.

Monday, January 14, 2013

I know, I know

When my friends and regular bloggers, Dan Change and Nancy Kissack reminded me this morning that it has been over a month since I checked in to the blogging world, I was ‘guilted’ into getting back in the groove; after all I did promise I would do better.  I just don’t know how the time flies by; it seems like just last week or so that I did a blog. 

Well, it has been a busy end of the year and this will be a catch-up blog. 

We got back to Fresno and were treated to a wonderful play, Wagons West, put on by our local elementary school. This was another outstanding theater production that is put each year. Our daughter, Jennifer, has for many years made the costumes for the kids. Even though Granddaughter, Julie graduates from college, Jenny made her costume when Julie was in 6th grade. That’s Julie on the left and this years ‘school marm’ on the right.

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The kids do an outstanding job and we expect to see one of them on Broadway on day just like Audra McDonald, a Fresno girl.

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We celebrated Thanksgiving in Fresno at Mom’s house.  Boy was it good. This is  left to right, SIL-Greg, GD-Jamie, Julie’s BF-Claudio, GD-Julie, SIL-NanCy, D-Julie, Mom, and Niece, Denise.

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The day after Thanksgiving we drove to the Coast and stayed in Lompoc at the Elks Lodge and drove to Ventura for Cousin Bob’s Son, Greg’s and Anna’s wedding. It was a wonderful time with all our Westerfield relatives.

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I did have one very embarrassing wardrobe malfunction occur on the way to the wedding.  I put on my Clark shoes when leaving Lompoc, but when we arrived in Ventura they had split wide open… totally unwearable. So this is what I had to wear, Tom’s shoes.2013-01-04_12-16-17_641P1100194

We loved the Pismo Beach area for the rest of the week especially the extreme high and low tides we saw.

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We enjoyed the very friendly pelicans on the pier, too.

Then before you know it it was time to get ready for Christmas.  We spent time with the family, shopped, took family Santa pictures and had a fabulous Christmas morning breakfast.

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For Christmas this year I decided to knit some hats.

I even knit a couple for me… I know it will be cold in Q this year.

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We’ve had a couple of challenges with the RV and most are getting fixed.  Tom and Jason pulled the awning off and we had it restitched. Then Tom and I put it back up. When they pulled it down it was so cold they had to use the hair dryer to melt the ice that wouldn’t let the fabric unroll.

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We left for the WMHA Rally in Indio on Jan 5, stopping in Boron for the night, and continuing to LaQuinta and the Sam;’s Club parking lot the next day. Jenny and Greg, Scruffy and Sampson gave us a big sendoff as we left.

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Tom has been the Conductor (president) of the Golden Spike Chapter for the last 2 years in spite of being promised that he would never have to hold an office again. So turning over the Conductor Hat and President’s plaque to Kurt Simon was a very happy event. 

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We gathered for our annual group chapter picture and also served ice cream only one day due to a mess up with ordering the ice cream.  Fortunately it was so cold missing ice cream for one day wasn’t too bad.

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The rally entertainment this year was very good: Doo Wop, Blue Grass / Jazz and the final night, a tribute to Billy Joel and Elton John.

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