Our RV Adventures

In one of those somewhat typical Texas winter days, after a low of 65 last night, the high for today was 66 . . . at 9am. Then the temp started dropping quickly into the low 50’s by noon.

Then tomorrow’s high is 50 with a 37 for tomorrow night. In Texas you can get Spring, Fall, Winter, and sometimes Summer, all in the same day. It’s always something.

But before it got too cold I went outside and crawled under the rig to see what was going to be involved in changing out the oil filter. And it looks like it won’t be a problem as far as actually reaching it and letting it down. Of course getting it up and back into place full of oil might be another story. But at least it’s not at the limit of my reach.

What I’ll probably do is that after I let the old one down and clean the base, I’ll first put the new one into place while it’s empty to see how easy it goes on and tightens down. Last thing I want to do is to cross-thread it.

Then I’ll fill it with oil and try it that way. So we’ll see how it goes.

After I completely changed our Paris/London travels plans . . . again, it looks like our travel agent, Chantelle Nugent, is still talking to me. After I called her yesterday morning to see about adding an extra day in Paris and an extra day in London, getting us home on Saturday, the 25th rather than Thursday the 23rd, I looked at it a bit more and we decided to add a second extra day in London. That would get us home on the 26th.

I think this about covers the changes that will need to be made.

Add Additional Day at Paris Hotel for Sunday, May 19th.

Change Private Transfer to Train Station in Paris to Monday, May 20th.

Change Paris to London Train Date to Monday, May 20th.

Change London Hotel Reservations to Monday, May 20th – Saturday 25th. adding two additional days total.

Change Total London Tour to Tuesday, May 21st or 23rd, 24th, or 25th.

Change Private Transfer to Heathrow to Sunday, May 26th.

Change Flight Home to Houston to Sunday, May 26th.

Hopefully the only increased cost will be 3 hotel nights.

Since we had breakfast for lunch yesterday at Snooze, today, of course, we had to have breakfast for dinner. At Denny’s this time. Then it was on over to the nearby Lowe’s for some longer bolts for my windshield wiper replacement.

After a PO stop for our mail, we got back to the park a little before 6pm, and found the rig’s parking (maker) lights on. I know they weren’t on when we left for Denny’s.

Since I had been fooling with some stuff near the dashboard, I thought maybe I had knocked them on accidentally, or maybe Karma the cat had done it.

Personally I blame the cat.

But when I checked they were not turned on, at least by the headlight switch. When I checked closer, I found that the front parking lights and the side marker lights were the on, including the roof ICC lights. But no tail lights at all.

And when I turned on the headlights, all the marker lights went out. Since it was getting dark, I decided to brute-force the solution by pulling some fuses. So after checking the chart, I first pulled the 20amp Marker Lights fuse. And lucked out because that killed the lights.

Another thing for the repair list, I guess.

Thought for the Day: 

Where do forest rangers go to “get away from it all?”

fhjfh

I got an email this morning reminding me that the final payment is due in two weeks for the Paris/London part of our upcoming trip. But as I was carefully looking over our itinerary, I noticed something.

I guess I didn’t make myself clear, but when I originally told Chantelle Nugent, our travel agent, that I wanted 4 days in Paris and 4 days in London. In my mind I was thinking that I was getting 4 full days in each. But due to the travel days on each end of each city, we only would have 3 days in each, and not 4.

So I put in a call to Chantelle to see if we could add a day in each city, and how much it would cost. It seems to me that, unless there are charges for changing the train reservations, limo rides, etc., the only increased cost should be the extra stays in the hotels.

This means that we would return to Houston on Saturday, May the 25th rather than Thursday the 23rd. But as Jan and I were talking about this while I was writing this blog, we decided that if we’re going to add two more days, why not add three, and come home on Sunday the 26th, after adding an additional, additional day in London.

Chantelle may not be speaking to me anymore. We’ll see.

We met Miss Piper at Snooze AM about 1pm, but though it was planned that she and Jan were supposed to go get Mani-Pedi’s, she had to beg off that since she was expecting a repair guy to come by her apartment later in the afternoon to fix a leak in her kitchen ceiling.

Turns out that they were doing some renovations in the apartment upstairs after the latest renter moved out, and started a leak that began pooling in the large fluorescent light fixture over her sink. Not good.

So we made plans to meet again next Saturday, though next time at Cheddar’s at 11pm. Then they’ll try the Mani-Pedi thing again then.

We did some news about Piper’s educational plans, though. She’s decided that she wants to stay in the psychiatric end of the medical field. She’s been working for a psychiatrist office as she’s finishing up her B.A, and has decided to concentrate her upcoming graduate studies in that direction. In fact, the office where she works has offered her a preceptorship in psychiatric nursing there.

In case you’re wondering, a preceptorship is an mentoring experience where a practicing physician gives personal instruction and training to a medical student during their medical school training..

So this meant that Jan would be coming with me to my client’s to install the new Brother 2840 Fax machine.

But that didn’t go as planned either, since it appeared to be defective out of the box. I had already cleared all sealing strips hidden inside and out, as well as adding paper, and removing and shaking the toner/drum combination as instructed.

So all I expected to have to do today was to put power to it  and program it with our name and phone number. But when I powered it up I got a PRINT UNABLE D1 message. Just to see if it made any difference I went ahead and programmed all our info into it, but with no change.

According to the manual, a PRINT UNABLE D1 error is a mechanical error, and the only supposed fix is to power the unit off for 10 seconds, then power it back on and let it sit for 15 minutes. And then power it off and back on again.

And if that didn’t fix it, “It’s Dead, Jim.” And to call the company about sending it back.

So that’s for Monday, I guess.

I now have a date to hopefully have our rig oil leak fixed by, The whole family is hoping to meet up at Chris and Linda’s place up in Kingsland for the weekend of April 5th. So I’ve got about a month to get the problem resolved. Of course, if we don’t get it fixed in time Jan and I will just drive up in the truck and stay in a motel. But I really would like to use it as a good test drive for the repair.

Thought for the Day: 

Ever notice how otherwise slow governments are so quick to screw up.

adfd