Great Bread and Italian Beef . . .
We both slept in this morning, Jan getting up at 9:30, with me following about 10. I made coffee and Jan toasted up some of Miss Terry’s great homemade bread.
Didn’t even need jelly, just some butter slathered on. Great!
After enjoying our coffee and toast, and checking my email, I went out about noon to change out my leaking black tank valve.
First I drained the black tank, and then used the built-in flush system until the water ran clear in my transparent hose segment.
About a week ago I’d sprayed the four bolts with penetrating oil hoping that would free up the somewhat rusted bolts.
And it did. Or at least it did for the front two. They came off very easy. However the rear two just would not budge.
I finally had to get a couple of pieces of pipe to use as ‘cheaters’ to give me enough leverage to break the nuts loose.
But it didn’t work. At least not that way. It did however shear the bolts into, which accomplished the same thing.
After I got the bolts out, it took only a couple of minutes to pull out the old valve and the gaskets.
Next I mounted the new gaskets on the ends of the exposed sewer pipe, and then slide the new valve in place, rotating in up and down to be sure it had seated with the gaskets.
I then installed the new bolts after greasing them up. Then after carefully tightened the bolts, I closed the valve and put the cap back on the hose connection.
Before I put the panels back on tomorrow and close everything up, I’ll take the cap off and be sure I don’t have any leakage.
All in all, it was a pretty simple job. It would have only taken about 30 minutes if it hadn’t been for the stuck bolts.
While I was working on the valve, a guy from RCS came over to borrow a pair of Channel-lock pliers. RCS is the company that runs the carnival that is arriving here at the fairgrounds to prepare for the Pima County Fair that starts April 14th
I was surprised to find out that they were coming here from the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo in where else, Houston. If they do the Houston Rodeo, they’re a big outfit.
About 3 pm, Nick and Terry, and Jan and I headed out, first for Wal-Mart for shopping, then on to Barnes & Noble for books, and then Luke’s Italian Beef for what else, Italian Beef. And Luke’s was as good as last time.
Coming home we stopped off at Nick’s cousin Beverly’s for a while.
After getting home, Nick and I went over some problems he’s having with some of his blogs, before finally calling it a night.
Here’s a repost of some of our visit to the Yosemite area last May.
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Thought for the Day:
Without coercion and extortion, most governments would cease to exist.
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The Acorn Pole…
Posted on May 4, 2010
Today was another ‘get ready to travel” day. We plan on leaving about 9 tomorrow morning and moving about 230 miles north to the Wind Country RV Park in Rohnert Park, CA, which will put us about 45 miles north of San Francisco.
We plan on staying there a week exploring San Francisco, Monterey, and the Napa wine country.
About 1:30 I dropped Jan off at the park laundry so she could do some heavy rugs.
When I picked her up about 4 pm we drove over to the acorn pole here in the park to see the handiwork of the Acorn Woodpecker.
And this is their work.
What you see above is a telephone pole, and food storage container for the Acorn Woodpecker and his acorns.
He enlarges the cracks in the pole and stuffs his acorns in there to keep them safe. But sometimes that doesn’t work. In Arizona, Acorn Woodpeckers stored 485 pounds of acorns in the sides of a wooden water tower that fell thru to the inside and they couldn’t get them back out.
About 4:30 pm we picked up George and Sandy Stoltz at their RV here in the park to drive into Oakhurst to have dinner at El Cid, a great Mexican restaurant we found here.
Great Friends, Great Times, Great Food. I”m sure we’ll bump into them again somewhere on the road.
More tomorrow from the Napa Valley
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