Our RV Adventures

And our last day with Nick and Terry for a while.

I headed over to Nick’s a little after 9 so I could clean and protect his house battery terminals. The positive terminals had a good bit of corrosion on them, though the negative poles were pretty clean.

Nick turned off the battery power to the coach, and then I removed all the wires, scrubbed them with a wire brush, and then sprayed everything with NAPA Battery Cleaner.

After letting them sit for about 10 minutes, I scrubbed everything again with the brush, and then sprayed it again with the cleaner. This time nothing turned from yellow to pink so I knew I had all the corrosion off.

Next I put everything back together and tightened it down. Then it was time for two coats of NAPA Battery Terminal Protector, and then everything looked nice and shiny like this.

I’ve used this terminal protector for years and it does a really good job keeping them clean if you’re careful to get all of the corrosion off to start with.

Getting back to the rig about an hour later, I made coffee and Jan and I enjoyed our last day in Apache Junction.

Then about 1pm we headed over to SanTan Village for a Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart run.

Finally getting back to the rig about 3 I started getting some outside things packed away for our departure tomorrow.

About 4:30 we picked up Nick and Terry and headed out to try Elvira’s Mexican Food, a place Terry had liked years ago when she lived here.

And it turned out to be really good. Good enough that we kind of wished we had tried it earlier so we could have eaten here more than once.

Since this was our last time with Nick and Terry for a while, we stretched out dinner as long as we could before heading back to the park.

This may be our last time to see them this year, but we’re hoping we can meet up in Bend, OR in June if their schedule works out. We’ll just have to see.

Tomorrow we’ll leave here about 9, get diesel at a CircleK two exits down, and then head for Las Vegas about 320 miles away. We plan on spending two weeks at the Thousand Trails park there before heading out for South Lake Tahoe and then Bend.

Our next ‘hard’ date is the Escapade in Gillette, WY June 30 through July 5.

After that, who knows?

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Thought for the Day:

The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.

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After a quiet morning I headed a few exits down the freeway to Power Rd. and Discount Tire. I needed to get the leaky one fixed that started losing air on Friday. But luckily the leak was slow enough that I was able to air it up and then get down the freeway to the store.

I had already figured out that I was going to have to get a new tire. The leak in this one was a blowout of a patch that was done while we were gate guarding in South Texas last year. And 45 minutes and $215 later, I was done and heading home, or at least, heading for Nick’s.

I had ordered an LED panel mount for Nick’s coach so he will have a separate way to monitor the voltage on his house 12v system

It seems like the voltage measured at his control is always too low, compared to measuring it at the battery, or measuring it on the 12v bus. In one case the panel showed 11.78 voltages, but it measured 13.1 at the batteries, and 12.9 on the bus in the coach

I was able to mount it right above Nick’s computer desk and tie it into a light fixture overhead, so it’s always visible.

We had also planned to clean his house battery terminals, but by now it was over 100 degrees, and since it would require disconnecting the house, which kills the AC and the fans too. So we’re going to hit it again early tomorrow morning.

Getting back home for the afternoon, we picked up Nick and Terry about 5pm and headed back over to Red Robin so Nick and Terry could get their Red Robin fix like Jan and I did last week.

Coming home I made a quick stop at Home Depot before getting home a little before 7pm. Normally Jan and I would have done our walk tonight but it was still in the 90’s so we called it off.

Brandi and Lowell sent over some pics of Landon having a good time at Chuck E. Cheese.

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I love this shot of him standing on his tippy toes so he can see better.

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Our daughter-in-law Linda posted these photos of her and Chris kayaking on Armand Bayou in the Clear Lake area.

Hope they’re watching out for all the gators that are in there.

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And wrapping things up, here’s another shot of Landon’s new 2nd cousin, Zoe. Love that red hair.

And finally on a very sad note, our long-time close friend, Gina (Regina) Ellis died this afternoon. Her daughter Sharelle called about 7:30 to tell us the news.

It was not unexpected, since Gina had been diagnosed with Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer even before we left Houston in February, so we knew it was just a matter of time.

We met Gina and her husband George in 1980 and quickly became fast friends. George, who died in 2004, worked at NASA at the same time I did. In fact, he was head of Crew Systems for Rockwell Aerospace for years, and worked directly on the Space Shuttle design in both California and Houston.

Gina had a varied career of her own, starting as an executive assissant at NASA which is when she met George. Later on she was an EMT, and a police sergeant. And when she retired she was an investigator for American National Insurance in Galveston, investigating insurance fraud.

She will be greatly missed by everyone who knew her.

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Thought for the Day:

"Give Me Chastity. Just Not Yet" – Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274 A.D.)

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