Our RV Adventures

or Do We Have Too Many Friends To Keep Up With?

In yesterday’s blog I tried to marry Judy Mott off to someone named Ed. But it seems she wants to stay with her present husband Dick. So much for my matchmaking ability.

I’m not sure where Ed came from, except as it  said, It Was Late And I Was Tired. Jan and I both think we know another couple named Ed and Judy, but couldn’t put a last name to them.

Blog reader Rick Rousseau identified the motor in yesterday’s trike as a GM product.

Rick said that the fact that the two inner exhausts ports were spaced very close together confirmed it.

Here was my reply to Rick.

Rick,

Well, I had it narrowed down to GM, Ford, or Chrysler, LOL.

The last time I fooled around with this stuff was in mid to late 60’s, with Hemi’s, 427’s, 428’s, 429’s etc. If it wasn’t at least 400 cu.in, it wasn’t a real motor, just a hamster in a wheel.

All these high output small blocks came around after my time.

In 1965 I did shoehorn a Buick aluminum V-6 into my Triumph Spitfire along with two Judson Superchargers, one on each bank, when I was racing in the SCCA Unlimited class.

Ran like a bat out of hell, but for some strange reason I kept blowing out rear-ends. Who knew? LOL.

Greg

Today being the 72nd anniversary of the D-Day landing on the beaches of Normandy, France, got me to thinking about my late Uncle Theo.

And that got me thinking about his wife, my aunt Virginia, who still lives up in north Alabama. So I put in a call to her to check in and let her know we expect to be up there around the middle of August in visit.

I didn’t find out until years later that he had landed on Omaha Beach during the first day of the attack. But Omaha Beach was just his third campaign. He was also part of the Torch landings in North Africa and the Husky Landings in Sicily.

All in all, he fought across Europe in 7 campaigns, ending up at the Battle of Bulge in Belgium. Dug in near Bastogne, Belgium, he said it was so cold nobody wanted to fight. “We could see the enemy, but we didn’t shoot at them, and they didn’t shoot at us.” 

Here’s what I wrote last May after he died. Check out the rest of the story.

Theo Wesley Calvin, Jr.

Around 3pm, I got the ladder out of the truck and went up on the roof of the rig to check out my leaking rear AC. The first thing I noticed was that there was no water running off the sides of the rig on this one, but plenty from the front unit.

And as usual in a simple job like this, one that should only take about 15 minutes, it took me almost an hour to just to get to the problem. It took me about 30 minutes to get one of the four bolts loose that holds the cover on the AC unit.

Then I started taking the sheet metal cover off the evaporator unit. And of course two of the 30 odd screws that hold it on were also stuck. So out comes the big screwdriver and the hammer.

Getting the cover off and moving the evaporator coil aside, it was easy to see the problem.

That white plastic tray is the drain pan and that round hole is the actual drain. There’s  one on each end of the pan and they were both stopped up with all the gunk that was floating around in the pan, and the pan was full and running over and into the intake filter below and dripping down onto the bedroom floor.

I was able to unstop the drain holes enough to get things flowing for today. But I’m going have to come back tomorrow to finish up by cleaning the evaporator coil, cleaning out the drain pan gunk, and then putting in some bleach to really clean out the drain holes. But I was wiped out for today. I’d been up there for almost two hours and the heat and sun was really starting to get to me. So I covered everything back up and came down.

Jan had been setting outside keeping an eye on me and could tell I wasn’t feeling well.  When I went up on the roof it was overcast and about 80. When I came down the sun was out, and it was 88. Unfortunately it’s going to be even hotter the next few days so I may wait a few days to finish up.

But for now, the problem is fixed and it’s no longer leaking into the bedroom.

Thought for the Day:

The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. – Plato

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Jan and I were up about 6:30 for our usual pre-prep to travel back to Lake Conroe today. As usual I had done a lot of things yesterday afternoon to get ready, i.e., stowed the sewer hose, etc. I normally would have also put up the shore water hose, but since I don’t have a working water pump right now, I  left it hooked up for today’s showers.

The replacement water pump is on the list, but it’s now been pushed down to third place. Instead, first up now is to climb up on the roof and check the drain holes on the rear AC. I’ve got water coming in from the AC filter when it’s running and I don’t see any sign of it running off the side of the rig as normal. It’s probably an algae buildup.

Then second, is my microwave door problem. The latch has apparently broken inside and I can’t open the door, even after holding in the button and pulling on the door as has been suggested.

At this point, looks like I’m going to have pull it out of its over-the-counter cabinet, and remove the panels to get to the latch to release it. Replacement parts should only be about $18. Certainly better than $300-$400 for a new one.

Jan and I headed into Columbus for our usual Schobel’s breakfast buffet. We always eat here before we leave Colorado River, and always have breakfast at the Cracker Barrel before we leave Lake Conroe.

Yes, it is a rut, but it’s a tasty rut.

Besides attracting us to the  good food, Schobel’s also seems to attract neat customized trikes. This was the first one we saw in their parking lot last December.

And then this one today.

I didn’t get enough of a look at the engine to know what it is, beyond a V-8. Maybe a reader will know.

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With a Busch beer keg for a fuel tank, and a Busch beer container for a saddle bag, I’m sensing a theme here.

Now that’s heavy duty suspension. It would look right at home on a John Deere tractor, especially with the green paint job.

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A switch for everything.

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Now I’m not sure what the little ‘distillery’ here is for. That’s the fan and radiator in that rear box, so maybe it’s his radiator overflow.

But since it’s a Russian Standard Vodka bottle, maybe he’s making up some homebrew as he drives.

A neat bike.

Back at the park, I was outside finishing up and ran into Vicki Hall, a fellow gate guard, and Facebook friend. She had posted a photo of their 5th wheel and said they were at Colorado River. When I saw the photo I realized they were parked right behind us.

Then a little later, Vicki’s husband Roy also came over to say “Hi”. Nice to put a face to to a name and a Facebook post.

The way we’re parked on this circle, the rear end of our coach is near the camper right next door. Since our engine compartment is only about 15 feet from where they were outside cooking and eating breakfast, and we weren’t in any real hurry, I decided to wait for them to finish  before I cranked up since it takes 5-6 minutes for the rig to come up on the suspension airbags before we can pull out..

So about 15 minutes we were pulling out and getting hitched up. And by 10:30 we were on our way to Conroe.

Saturday, when we were traveling down to Seabrook for our Taft/NASA reunion, we  both commented on how there was no wind along the way, with the flags all hanging limp. But we both figured it would  be different today, And it was.

Today the flags along the way were all at right angles to the poles. The only redeeming part was that it wasn’t as gusty as in the past, just steady from the north.

Passing Brookshire, we pulled over on the shoulder for a potty stop. This is a good place for that because the shoulders on both sides of the three lanes are extra wide, due to the fact that they are designated as Evaculanes for hurricane evacuation, giving people 5 lanes to get out of town.

While we were stopped I cranked up the generator and turned on the AC’s. When we left Colorado River, it was overcast and 73 degrees, and it was supposed to stay that way the whole trip. But the sun came out and put an end to that. So AC’s it was.

We got into the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails a little after 12:30 and found a nice site in our favorite ‘E’ ring. Then a little later, I talked with Judy Mott about getting together while we’re both here. Really looking forward to seeing Dick and Judy again.

Life is good.

Thought for the Day:

“An elected legislature can trample a man’s rights as easily as a king.”

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