Our RV Adventures

When I got up at 11 Janice Evans was over visiting with Jan, so we all sat around for awhile together talking.

I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon working on more stuff for the new website, still trying to get the shopping cart page formatted to look like I want it to.

About 2pm Jan and I headed out to the Conroe Wal-Mart to pick up her prescriptions, and some other stuff, before heading back home for the day.

We’re having a family get-together at Brandi’s in Katy tomorrow afternoon at 1, with Chris, Linda, and Piper also there, so we were picking up some of  this stuff for that.

Getting back home I finally got to work on my washer repair, with the first task to get the water out by opening the lint drain on the bottom right of the unit. I pushed an empty kitty littler bucket up underneath the opening and unscrewed the filter door.

And a lot of smelly water came pouring, smelly because it had been trapped in the washer since Thursday morning. After dumping the water down the lavatory, I decided to check the idea that the problem of the washer being stuck in the wash cycle was caused by a bad discharge pump.

So I moved the timer to the SPIN position and pressed the ON button. At first it stayed in the wash cycle, but then after a moment or so, it started spinning. So the pump problem was still a valid one.

When I did open the lint drain I was hoping to see something stuck in there that indicated a clogged pump, but no luck with that, unfortunately. And it was easy to see that although the washer was spinning, the water in the drum being spun out of the clothes wasn’t being pumped out either. So I’m left with a pump problem.

There are basically three possible problems with the pump.

First up is the easiest one. The power wire feeding the pump has come loose.

Second, the new pump has died. This pump was already a kludge, since the original ones aren’t made anymore. Because of the circumstances of how I got this one I doubt I’ll be able to find another just like it. But I should be able to find a similar one that I can also make work. Still not a big problem.

But the third possibility is more worrisome. That would be if the pump is just not getting the signal to turn on, which means the problem is buried in the washer somewhere which makes repairing the problem more . . . well, problematic.

So we’ll see. Next up now is to actually pull it out of the cabinet, but with our road trip down to Brandi’s tomorrow I probably won’t get back on it until Monday.

After having our leftover El Bosque from Thursday night for dinner tonight, Jan and I walked next door to Janice and Dave Evans’ to sit outside for a while. When we got there some other friends, Richard and Karen Headley, were just leaving, so we didn’t get do more than say hello and goodbye. But hopefully we’ll have a chance to talk a little more next time.

After a while Jan and Janice went inside their Monaco Dynasty to look at something, leaving Dave and me outside talking. Since it was quiet and not a lot going on around us, I went back to our rig and brought Miss Karma back over with me.

I had just bought her a better harness and wanted to see how she would do outside for a while on a lease. And she did very well, sometimes staying in my arms, or in the chair next to me, and sometimes on the ground.

But finally she started getting a little antsy, so I took her back to the rig. But it was pretty good for the first time outside in a good while.

Tomorrow, fun with the family.

Thought for the Day:

“To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” – Teddy Roosevelt

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I got my first real full night’s sleep last night and I’m about back to normal.

One thing the Rest Up Day consisted of, was no washer repairs. I decided to take the day off from that as well. But tomorrow it’s back at it.

About 2pm I drove down to the Ranger’s Office to settle up and get our car pass and the gate code, and then it was on to Wal-Mart to drop off a couple of prescriptions resulting from Jan’s recent ER visit., and pick up a couple of things.

Back at the rig, I spent the afternoon working on a new website for a client, setting up the Shopping Cart on PayPal. and trying out some different design ideas. I’ll be previewing it here as soon as it’s done and online. It’s a really neat product.

Besides the washer repair, it looks like I’ve got another thing on my plate. The other day when Jan was following me in the truck, she noticed that my right turn signal wasn’t working on the rig. The last time I checked them, which was about five weeks ago, on our way to our gate, they were working fine.

So, figuring it was just a bulb I removed the lens cover and pulled the bulb, which turned out to be a standard #1156. But the bulb looked good, and checking with my meter showed it was good.

So hopefully it’s just a dirty socket that a squirt of Strike-Hold will fix. I know the signal is getting back there, because the turn signals on the truck work fine, and both are fed from the same line.

Strangely enough, if this had been a bad bulb, it would have been the very first bad one since we bought the coach in December 2007. I have replaced a couple of the side marker lights, but never headlights or signal lights, front or rear. Of course they’ll all go out now.

A number of you have been asking for updated Karma pics so here’s a couple.

From being pretty much scrawny runt, she’s bulked to a full size kitty. I guess we feed her better than the mouse/grasshopper diet she was on when she was feral.

Here’s one with her ‘laser’ eyes,

and here’s another one.

She’s actually bigger than she looks in these photos, but I haven’t had a chance to weigh her since we had her spayed back in May. Then she weighed 7# 9oz, but she’s a good bit more than that now, possibly twice as much.

One final thing, when you leave a comment, be sure and leave your real email address. I don’t do anything with them, and they don’t show up on the blog. But I usually try to reply to you both on the blog and via email, so it helps.

This means you, Orlyn. The email address you left didn’t work.

“To lose 
one parent may be 
regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.†—Oscar Wilde

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