Our RV Adventures

First off, I want to wish my beautiful wife Jan a very happy birthday.

You’ve made the years just fly by. It seems like only yesterday I was trying to get you to go out with me.

I Love You More Every Day!

We left the rig about 12:30, heading over to Dickinson to pick up our rent car from Enterprise. I got one for a week to drive while our truck is at the transmission doctor.

The last time we rented a car was back in 2013 and we got a Hyundai Elantra. I was hoping this time, though, that I would get something else since I blogged at the time that it was the most uncomfortable car I had ever driven. The seat backs were kind of curved in a semicircle, so if you had wide shoulders you couldn’t fit into it without sitting to one side or the other.

So when I pulled up to the location I was happy to see a Chevy Malibu waiting for me.

Turned out to be very comfortable, and a lot of fun to drive.

Now that we had a replacement ride, our next stop was Snider Transmission back over in Santa Fe to drop off the truck for them to look at.

Kenny (Snider. It’s a family business) remembered my call and said they’d check it out and let me know.

Then after a quick stop at the local Dollar General, we headed up to Webster for Jan’s Birthday dinner at Saltgrass Steakhouse.

We only have an alcoholic drink once or twice a year, so today seemed like a good time. Jan got an Amaretto Splash,

while I got a Ginger Peach Lemonade, made with Vodka, Peach Schnapps, and a Fiery Ginger Liqueur.

A very hot and spicy drink. Just my style.

We started off with our favorite Wedge Salads,

then Jan got the Center-Cut Filet (she started eating it before I could get a photo),

while I got my favorite Ribeye.

But the pièce de résistance was this made in-house Pumpkin Cheesecake.

Really delicious. Very thick and flavorful. And in season, you can buy whole pies to take home.  Something to think about.

Waddling out after that fantastic meal, we headed across the Interstate to check out the new Costco. We bought our membership before we left for Florida, but it didn’t open until while we were gone.

It’ll take us a while to find our way around, though it is laid out similar to the Sam’s Club up the road a piece.

One thing I did notice, and it just may be a opening special, is that they have regular gas for $2.29, about 20 cents cheaper than any other place around.

Then on our way home we made a quick stop by the PO to check the mail, but only had some sales flyers.

Tomorrow, back to work.

Thought for the Day: 

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At Least I Hope It’s Only Three!

Well, I guess I saved my client $5,000.00 today by getting Census Bureau’s 2017 Economic Census finished up and submitted online. The review process said there were no errors, so hopefully  there won’t be any problems. But if government agents show up at the front door, “I Know Nu…ting.”

Now to recap our recent Florida trip:

First up, our rig’s oil leak is back. Or maybe never left.  Although after the oil filter was replaced, thinking it was the problem, and an hour-long high idle and a 45 minute test drive showed no sign of a leak, when I did a walk-around at our first rest stop about 90 minute down the road, our toad was again oil-speckled.

And then toward the end of the day’s travels to Beaux Bridge, I started to notice the slight drop in oil pressure that indicates a drop in oil level. And it continued for the rest of the trip out and back. So every 300-400 miles I had to add a couple of gallons of Shell Rotella 15w-40.

Coming home from Breaux Bridge, I tried placing my Endoscope from the top of the engine to monitor the area where the leak seems to be coming from (somewhere above the oil filter), but there was just too much vibration to be able to see anything useful.

When the RV Mobile Lube guy was out here replacing the oil filter, he said there was something funny about the a tube of some sort above the oil filter, so I’m going to put one of my Wyze Cams on the end of a pole and look down in there to see what I find. Then I might try the high-idle thing again.

Second up, while we were staying in the Gulf Shores area on our way out, our 2004 Dodge Dakota toad decided our transmission no longer needed 3rd, 4th, or 5th gear. Starting off,  it shifts through 1st and 2nd just fine, but when it upshifts to where 3rd should be, it just races like it’s in Neutral.

But if we drop it down to 2nd on the gearshift, if stays in 2nd and let us drive around at 40-45 with no problems. Just slow.

Luckily, while we were in Florida Nick let us borrow his Ford Explorer to get around. Making the 150 mile trip down to West Palm Beach at 40 mph would have been tedious.

So now it’s a two prong attack. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be taking the truck into Snider Transmission to let them take a look at it. A little Googling shows that this is not an unknown problem and may be something as simple as a broken bolt or a blown seal. But since the Dakota has 282,000 miles on the odometer and another 88,000 miles being towed that doesn’t register on the odometer, my plan B has me looking at new (to us) possible replacements.

Now I’m checking out www.cargurus.com and www.truecar.com, and cross referencing possibilities with the Dinghy Towing Guides found at Motorhome Magazine’s website.

And thirdly, when we got home on Monday and got set up, our desktop computer was working fine. However when we got up Tuesday morning our Acer Monitor had died. I mean, it’s only 9 years old. So what’s up with that?

So I put in an Amazon overnight delivery order for a new Acer S241HL 24-inch monitor, a step up from the 21-inch we did have. And about $90 cheaper than the 2009 model.

Besides being bigger, it’s also much sharper and brighter. Things have improved a lot since 2009.

So that’s about it for our trip. Hopefully nothing else is on the horizon for a while.

Thought for the Day: 

“Why is it that when one man builds a fence, the next man immediately needs to know what’s on the other side?”

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