Our RV Adventures

We didn’t walk this morning because I was in repair mode – Splendide washer repair. A couple of days ago our washer went wonky and stopped pumping the water out when it goes into spin mode. The drum starts to turn but I don’t even hear the pump try to pump.

Since we had a washer full of wet clothes, we loaded them into a plastic garbage bag and took them down to Brandi’s yesterday to finish up.

So this morning, after looking over the Splendide service manual, I was hoping it was the pressure switch (cheap to buy and easy to replace), I ruled out a clogged drain line (another easy fix) since the pump would at least try to start pumping in that case.

But a call to Westland Sales disavowed me of that easy fix. The tech reminded me that the pressure switch also governs the amount of water that fills the tub at the beginning of the wash cycle. So if the switch wasn’t working, the tub would overfill. And it wasn’t.

Then he gave me the bad news. It was probably the pump itself.

Then he gave me the badder news. The pumps are no longer available.

So if it is the pump is bad, I’m out of luck. At least as far as buying a new one. But looking at a photo of a pump, there might be another way.

There’s really only two things that can go wrong with a pump like this. Either the pump rotor is jammed, or the motor has died.

The motor can be repaired, even if I have to rewind it. There are no brushes in this type of motor, so that’s not a problem either.  Actually  the most likely motor problem is a broken wire leading to the windings.

As far as the pump itself, unless the pump rotor broke, it’s probably the bearings. And they can probably be kludged also.

So we’ll see.

But even with all this, I have a possible backup plan. When my friend Nick Russell replaced his Splendide a couple of years ago, I stripped it for parts, but I don’t know if the pump was one of them.

The next step is to pull the washer out, turn it upside down and check out the pump situation. I didn’t start today since we’ll be down in the Clear Lake area all day tomorrow with two doctor checkup appointments for Jan, and then dinner with friends. So I’ll tackle it starting Thursday morning.

Blog reader Judy Hughes reminded me I didn’t give ya’ll a Traveling with Karma update since we moved over to Lake Conroe from Colorado River this past Sunday.

All in all, she took it pretty well for a first time. Especially  if ‘pretty well’, means hiding as soon as we pulled out and not coming out until we were parked. But she didn’t seem to care when I started up the diesel, didn’t really seem to notice at all. I guess she didn’t like the floor moving under her feet though.

The newest thing she does is to get up on the dashboard and look out through the curtains, just watching what’s going on. She does this several times day, over and over. But she still shows no inclination to go outside though, so that’s good

The biggest change, though, is how she’s bulked up. We’ve had her for two weeks now, and when we first got her, I measured her for a harness so we could take her outside on a leash. But by the time we got it from Amazon yesterday, it almost too tight.

Thinking I might have mis-measured, or they sent me the wrong size, I checked her again. And she’s definitely filled out in the body. 

Our little girl is growing up.

Thought for the Day:

There are few problems so bad that the intrusion of government can’t make worse.

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We didn’t walk this morning since we had to head down to Brandi’s about 1 pm, and that’s often about the time we finish up with our walk-breakfast-walk routine.

From last night when the park was almost full, this morning it was now half empty as everyone headed home after the long holiday weekend. Now we would have our choice of sites instead of the slim pickings we had yesterday.

As I said, we headed out for Brandi’s about 1, getting there about 2:30, so that we could pick Landon up at his school, while Brandi and Lowell could attend a Parent-Teacher conference.

We headed out for Landon’s school a little after 3 to get in line to wait for the the dismissal. We drove Lowell’s truck so that we wouldn’t have to switch over Landon’s car seat, as well as the Student ID Tag that identifies the truck as being Landon’s pickup vehicle.

The way this school handles parents picking up their kids is a model of modern technology.

We lined up in the truck outside the school grounds along the street until we were waved in. As we entered, one of two ladies logged us into the computer system with an iPad, using the unique number showing on the Student ID Tag that hung from the rearview mirror, while the other lady holds up a sign directing us to the right or left lane as we queued up.

Based on our position in the line, which was tracked from the Student ID number entered earlier, the computer now knows which one of the numbered pickup stations we will stop at. At this point Landon’s teacher receives a computer message to send Landon out to, in this case, Station 6, and the teacher monitoring Station 6 also knows to expect Landon, and tracks him down if he doesn’t show up on time.

And in our case, when our line stopped,  we stopped because the vehicle in front of us stopped at Station 5, so we were sitting at Station 6, and there was Landon waiting for us.

This is much safer for the kids since they’re not running hither and yon, out into the streets as cars are zipping in and out all trying to pick up their kids and get on their way. The only possible problem I can see is what if the computer system goes down? And it will, believe me.

So, do they have a backup plan without computers, or are they just going with the chaos method?

Brandi and Lowell showed up at the house about 4:30 and then we all headed out for dinner. They were introducing us to La Finca Mexican Restaurant, a place they’d eaten at several times, but a first for us.

And now we want to know why they’ve been hiding this place from us. It was delicious.

We knew we were in for a treat with the first dip of salsa. It was thick, chunky, and just full of smoky chipotle flavor. Very good.

For our meal, Jan and I split the Combo Beef and Chicken Fajitas Poblanas for Two.

Although it was more like ‘For Four’, than Two. With Beef, Chicken, poblano peppers, red peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, and cheese, it was a full meal and then some. In fact we took half of it home for tomorrow.

Really, really good and we’ll go back.

Wrapping up, I thought I’d post this video of a Roadrunner/Rattlesnake Deathmatch. I had seen this a while back, but fellow gate guard JW Wilk’s reposting on Facebook made me want to pass it on to you.

Based on this video, I think the Coyote was probably lucky he never actually caught the Roadrunner. It wouldn’t have turned out well.

When we were on our very first gate back in 2012, there were roadrunners all over the place, always zipping around with a mouthful of lizard or grasshopper.

They were very curious, and seemingly not afraid of anything. One time I sitting out under the canopy on the gate, reading my Kindle, and I suddenly felt something watching me.

Looking down there was a big male roadrunner less than a foot away, just looking up at me. After we stared at each other for about 30 seconds, I guess he figure he wasn’t ‘that’ hungry, and stalked off.

Later that summer, on another gate, the landowner told my wife there were a lot of rattlesnakes in the area and wondered if we had seen any of them. Jan said we hadn’t and that there were so many roadrunners around that they were probably keeping them under control.

He looked at Jan very seriously and said, “They can’t get’em all.”

A lesson in irony..

The Food Bank Program, administered by Social Welfare Canada, is actually proud of the fact it is distributing the greatest amount of free meals and food vouchers ever.

Meanwhile, the National Park Service, administered by the Canada Parks and Natural Resources, asks us to “Please Do Not Feed the Animals.”

Their stated reason for the policy is because the animals will grow dependent on handouts and will not learn to take care of themselves

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