Our RV Adventures

We got up about 9am and got our hearts pumping with a big pot of Texas Pecan Hazelnut coffee. Then Nick called about 9:30 to say they expected to be in Gila Bend between 12:30 and 1, which gave us plenty of time to get packed up and then weigh the coach like we planned.

So about 11:30 we pulled out of our site into the adjacent parking lot and onto the scales.

When you park on the scales, make sure your front and rear axles are on two different scale segments, indicated by the black stripes on the scale.

Remember how yesterday I said you needed a long stick. These photos show why. Even when you’re at the right level, it’s still over a 3 foot reach to press one of the call buttons (one of the two buttons on either side of the speaker at the bottom).

You press the button and when they answer, tell them you’re a private coach and want a weigh.

This weigh will give you a front axle / rear axle weight, as well as a total gross weight for the coach.

Next I pulled through and back around, reentering the scales, but off to the left side, being sure that my left side wheels were completely on the apron and not on the scales. This allows me to weigh only the right side of the coach. This time I had to get out of the coach (with my long stick) to press the button. I now told them I wanted a ‘reweigh’. This saves me $5.00.

A ‘weigh’ is $6.00, and a ‘reweigh’ is $1.00. If you tell them both times you want a ‘weigh’, it will cost you $12.00. A ‘weigh’ and a ‘reweigh’ is $7.00.

Go figure. Just another mystery of life.

After pulling off the scales, I parked the coach and then Jan and I drove over to the office and picked up my weigh tickets, one for each time.

The first ticket shows that at 32,340 lbs., I’m about 340 lbs. over gross vehicle weight. Not exactly good, but actually only a little over 1% overweight.

As far as the front and rear axles go, I’m 120 lbs. under the max on the front axle and 460 lbs. too heavy on the rear. Again only a little over 2% overweight.

Time to jettison some books. Or a cat…a black cat.

The reweigh ticket has some good news. The reason for weighing one side by itself is to see if your weight is balanced pretty equally on each corner.

The front axle is perfectly balanced. 11880 lbs. total front axle – 5940 lbs. right front equals 5940 lbs. on the left side.

Perfect.

As far as the rear axle, 20460 lbs. minus 10340 lbs. equals 10120 lbs.

A little mismatch, but only about 2% again.

After we picked up our weigh tickets, we drove into Gila Bend one last time so Jan could get a McDonald’s Fish sandwich and some fries for lunch.

And about 15 minutes after we got back, Nick and Terry showed up. After getting in our hugs, and catching up a bit we hit the road to Yuma about 115 miles away.

A few miles out of town, Nick and Terry stopped to fuel up while Jan and I continued on to the Yuma County Fairgrounds where we would meet up.

Arriving at the fairgrounds parking lot, we found the rest of the Gypsy Gathering Rally advance team, Tom and Barb Westerfield, already waiting for us. Then a few minutes later, Nick and Terry pulled in. While Nick went to the fairgrounds office, the rest of us caught on old times.

When Nick got back we took our rigs over to our usual parking spots by the stables, luckily, uninhabited at the present.

After everyone got set up, about 5pm, we all drove over to Chretin’s, a local Mexican restaurant we’ve enjoyed in the past. They were really busy by the time we left, but luckily we got there early enough to beat the crowd.

After a couple of hours of swapping stories, we decided that, yes we DID have room for Dairy Queen, so we all adjourned to the nearest DQ to continue the evening’s fun and frivolity.

Ok, well it was fun, anyway.

Finally getting back to the rigs, we said our goodnights and settled in for the evening.

More tomorrow from Yuma . . .

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Thought for the Day:

"One of the serious problems in planning against American doctrine is that the Americans do not read their manuals nor do they feel any obligations to follow their doctrine"

From a Russian warfare manual

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"The reason that the American army does so well in wartime is that war is chaos, and the American army practices chaos on a daily basis."

A WWII German General Officer

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Today’s our last full day in Gila Bend, and we started off with some Cinnamon Amaretto Pecan coffee (two scoops of Gevalia Cinnamon, 1 scoop of HEB Texas Pecan, and Amaretto Creamers). Hmmm Good!

I called Nick about 10:30 to coordinate our trip to Yuma tomorrow. We plan on meeting up with them here in Gila Bend as they pass thru on their way from Apache Junction.

A little after 11am Jan and I headed over to Sofia’s Mexican Food for one last shot at their Shrimp Burritos and Carnitas Dinners. And their salsa is great, too. Really hot.

Our last stop was the hardware store, again. I wanted to get another AC Vent Deflector and some steel mending plates. The deflectors are held to the vent covers by magnets, but my covers are plastic and the steel screws don’t have enough surface to hold the deflectors securely.

So I added the mending plates under the screws holding the vents on.

This gives a good surface for the magnets to grip. This should hold them firmly. We’ll see tomorrow when we travel on to Yuma.

Coming back to the rig, I dropped Jan off and then went over to the CAT scales to weigh our toad. We haven’t weighed it since we did it here in Gila Bend 3 years ago on our way to Alaska. And this time I had a long stick with me.

The call button that you press to get a weight is about 8 feet off the ground since it’s supposed to be pushed from a semi cab. So a long stick is needed for the pickup. In fact, it also helps in the weighing the RV too.

The toad weighs 5570 lbs. That’s about 300 lbs. less than 3 years ago, mostly due to the fact that on our way to Alaska I was carrying a spare tire that weighed 225 lbs. I carried the spare “just in case” because all the books said it was needed.

Of course, because I had the spare, I never needed it. Never had a flat on either the rig or the toad, so I ditched it as soon as we got back to Houston.

Tomorrow I’ll weigh the coach before we leave here.

After we returned from lunch I got back on the carpet project. I finally got all the carpet up underneath Jan’s chair, and all the staples either removed, or pounded flat. The black square in the center is the mounting base for the chair.

And this is with the chair mounting plate installed. The chair itself mounts on the plate with bolts thru the 4 holes. All the motors that move and configure the chair are mounted in the base of the chair.

After we get to Yuma for a few weeks I’ll pull the driver’s chair and remove the last of the carpet underneath there. Then it will be time to start laying the laminate. Wheeee!

More tomorrow from Yuma . . .

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Thought for the Day:

All you Need to Know about Government and Bureaucracy:

Pythagorean theorem: …………………………………………………….. 24 words.

Lord’s prayer: ………………..…………………………………………………. 66 words.

Archimedes’ Principle: …………………………………………………….. 67 words.

10 Commandments: ………….…………………………………………… 179 words.

Gettysburg address: ……………………………………………………… 286 words.

Declaration of Independence………………………………………. 1,300 words.

US Government regulations on the sale of cabbage:  ……….26,911 words.

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