Motorhome – TooBusyForWork

In Alabama getting things done

It was an amazingly relaxing time at home. Maybe I should use a more appropriate term – lazy time! After all the running around, it was nice to just relax. I didn’t sew a single thing! We did have three separate get togethers with the kids since they are all so busy a single one wouldn’t work! Lots of cooking, but nice.

We left home on Friday, 8 September. Our first night we spent at Bowling Green, MO Walmart. I like small town Walmarts. They are generally not too crowded, quiet, and safe. We have stayed here a number of times.

We had a bit of excitement the second day when we spotted a blimp descending south of Cape Girardeau, MO. The Subway blimp was on its way to Kansas City, but took a breather here. The pictures are awful because we were on a highway with no place to pull over. Kevin took them out of the window. The front is supposed to look like a sandwich and the back is like a wallpaper with the words “Subway” in different fonts and sizes. Why does Subway need a blimp? I sure don’t know!

We spent Saturday night at the Elks Club campground in Cape Girardeau. Pretty, but I won’t stay again. They didn’t have the trees trimmed, and I had to go through overhanging branches that rubbed my roof. None of the were big, just little stuff, but they shouldn’t advertise they handle big rigs! Then the campsite itself took a lot of work to get level. Never again! We did have a pretty view when we finally got situated. The sky was overcast and gray, and the water was the same color with reflections. This is in the boot heel of Missouri, so the trees are only just thinking about changing colors.

We spent a lot of time getting the motorhome worked on. Monday we had a major motorhome service (oil, filters, transmission drain and replace, chassis maintenance, etc.) plus added a bunch of suspension upgrades. I haven’t had a lot of time with them yet, but it feels promising on the few roads we have had it on. The work basically reset the clock on all kinds of items so next year we are back to a Year 1 maintenance.

Tuesday we had a Shower Miser installed. This is a valve and plumbing where I close a valve in the shower, turn on the hot water, and the water flows from the water heater back to the fresh water tank until I open the valve. It saves quite a bit of water that would otherwise be wasted waiting for the shower to get hot. Obviously this isn’t an issue when we have hookups, but I am hoping it will save quite a bit of water when we dry camp and boondock. It works great! We also had a leaking Hepvo valve replaced (an alternative to a P-trap for RVs with limited space) and our black and gray tanks power flushed. We keep them in pretty good shape, but the gray tank is a bigger bother. Fats and food deposits accumulate on the sides of the tank, and we don’t have a good way to clean them out.

Wednesday Kevin installed a new rear view campers. Ours was just becoming intermittently bad. He checked all the wiring, so we just got a new one. So far it is MUCH sharper than the old one.

Thursday we got our old Schwintek slide mechanism in the big back slide (bedroom and bath) replaced with a Vroom system. This was the reason we really came down. Every time I opened or closed the slide, I had to pray it would work, and generally Kevin ahd to help it along from the outside. Turns out it was truly broken. We had it worked on two years ago, and I just wasn’t willing to do it again. So far so good! The mechanics of the slide are much more robust and the motor is more powerful too. I think the Schwintek was just not up to the job.

Friday we getting our lounge/bathroom wall slammed back into place and re-tied down. The wall was literally moving away from its position. Chris Berry had fixed it 3 years ago or so, but I think the Alcan Highway between Tok and Destruction Bay did it in. The screws Chris had put in were all either broken or gone completely, so this time he added backing boards, REALLY big screws, and even screwed through the tile grout to anchor the wall to the metal frame in the floor. You can see how far it moved away from the wall by looking at the ceiling dents. The soft fabric will eventually expand back. Oh, and on this trip Kevin had already slammed the wall back in place about 6 weeks ago.

Saturday we visited the Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center and the Shiloh National Military Park. What a sobering visit it was. We started at Corinth because that was where the major museum and interpretive center was, and it out the Battle of Shiloh and the Battle of Corinth in perspective. These were the battles that lead General Grant to control the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers plus the major rail lines of the Confederacy, splitting it in two and severing supply lines. After these battles he headed to victory in Vicksburg where visited last year.

Pittsburg Landing is where Grant landed his troops.

And far, far, far too many never left the battlefield. Soldiers from both sides were originally buried in a multitude of mass trench graves. The Confederate soldiers are still there, marked by solitary large monuments. The Union soldiers were reburied at this national cemetery. Note the big monuments surrounded by smaller ones. The unit of the soldiers could be determined by their uniforms, but not their names. The vast majority were buried with their unit. The larger stones indicate the unit, and the smaller stones are individual graves.

The battlefield ranged over a few miles, and the liens are very well identified by the NPS. This shows a sample of the location of a particular artillery battery at a particular time in the 2 day battle. These types of markers were numerous.

The battle was named for this little Methodist Episcopal Church (a south), part of a pro-slavery split from the anti-slavery Methodist Episcopal Church. “Shiloh” means “place of peace” or “peaceful one.” The battle raged around the little church, and it was totally destroyed. However this faithful replica was hand built and completed in 2001 based on church records and other historical documents.

During the Civil War, the military units were mostly from a single geographical area. Many states whose units participated in the battle built monuments to their soldiers. This is the Iowa monument. According to the NOS records, 6664 Iowa soldiers were at the battle and 2409 were killed, wounded, or missing, the greatest loss of Iowans in any bottle of any war. This is one of the reasons I was always so furious with former US Representative Steve King who always kept a Confederate battle flag behind his desk, prominently displayed in any picture he took in his office.

This is the Confederate monument. Only 25% of Confederate soldiers were from slave owning families, but the other 75% fought and died to keep human beings as property.

The film shown at the Shiloh Visitor Center was one of the most sobering and heart-wrenching things I have ever seen. I cried. Such waste to support an unsupportable cause. We ended up eating at Cole’s Smokehouse with the most fabulous smoked chicken I have ever had. We come every time we visit Red Bay, and they never disappoint.

Sunday we took a trip to the Rattlesnake Saloon outside Tuscumbia, AL. It is in some type of natural cave with a huge opening, and it a fabulous place to visit. You park on top in a large lot, then they ferry you down a steep one lane road in a specially set up pickup to the cave. The food is just so so, but the atmosphere is what you go for. Well worth a trip if you are in the area. We even got some live local music this time.

Tomorrow we get the motorhome detailed and(probably) buffed, the we leave on Tuesday. Whew, I really should post more often so they don’t get as long!

Been a long time …

I never seem to post much when we are just hanging around the house. We haven’t taken any fun trips, and we have mostly been consumed with medical “stuff.” Kevin had a knee replacement four weeks ago, and before that we had the series of miscellaneous appointments that go with having surgery. It didn’t help that the surgeon and facility was 1 1/2 hours away! But the results have been fabulous. He used a walker for just one week, and he tossed the cane four days ago. He still gets sore of course, and the strengthening exercises have a painful aftermath, but he is powering through it. His motivation is to get in good enough shape to drive south after Christmas. Good motivation as a snowstorm heads our way tonight and tomorrow!

We have made a change in the storage facility for the motorhome. The price for our indoor storage has increased from $220 a month to $379 over four years. We moved to outdoor storage for $45 a month. Of course there was a lot to clean out of the enclosed storage first, and the garage at the house had to be re-arranged to hold it all! Kevin managed to fit everything in plus the trailer with the RZR and two cars in the 3 stall garage. I was impressed. Keeping the batteries in good shape while stored without electricity has been a learning experience. We have a lot of solar, but there are parasitic draws even with the 12v and 110v systems turned off. The LiFePO4 batteries need to be kept about 50-70% in storage, so we had to play with some of the charger setting. I think we have it now.

We also hired our son in law to do install some landscape blocks to even out the slope in our lawn some. We had gravel that went down a hill, and every big rain would wash some of it in the grass. Now I will have a nice flower/shrub bed next spring. Oh, and it really is level even though I can’t seem to take a decent picture!

I have done some sewing, but not enough! I finally finished piecing the king sized quilt for our motorhome. I don’t have a picture though since it still needs a good pressing. It is a lovely Jewel Box design with rich colors on a charcoal background. I haven’t really quilted anything because I sent my Handi Quilter Sweet 16 display and c-pod to get updated. I am considering upgrading my S16 to use a stitch regulator table, and this was needed. The update is relatively inexpensive, but the table is not! Still thinking about that, but the update has some advantages just by itself.

I also am working on a “Mystery Quilt” Zoom class that uses my AccuQuilt cutting system. We get new “clues” every week, and we make the blocks called for. We don’t know what the final design will be until the last session on 26 December. The class is well run and the technology actually works! Here are my first two big blocks. There are also lots of little blocks that go with them that will be used in the final assembly. I only showed a few of those. The little blocks are of all types – tiny four patch (shown), bigger four patch, hour glass, kite, and others. The instructor is telling us to only finger press our blocks as we go, and that is so hard for me! But I am giving it the old college try, and I hope it works well. Pressing is a very power hungry task, and it would be nice to not do much of it while we boondock.

First block of the second week – 18” square

I still have the second block of the second week to do, plus a bunch more of the little blocks. I really messed up on the color contrast with this one, but oh well. Lesson learned.

I am also starting Christmas presents, though I am way behind. This year everyone is getting oven mitts, cut (of course) with the AccuQuilt. Here is the sample I am keeping for myself. I am pretty happy with the construction and the final appearance. I used my binding attachment, and it went together pretty well.

I also bought myself a bit of a present (shush, don’t tell!). I ordered a Handi Quilter “Mystery Ruler Box.” It had six long arm quilting rulers in it, and it only cost $50. Pretty good deal! I am not sure what I will do with the hexi, but I feel I will use the others.

I will probably think of something else I have forgotten in the last two months, but I can catch that later.

And it is almost summer!

I am definitely in the mood for getting out again. We haven’t bee out since the last trip at the end of April. For Mother’s Day we had most of the kids and grandkids come over for dinner. It was nicer than just the two of us going somewhere, though I did do the cooking LOL! We had pot roast, carrots, and potatoes so it wasn’t too hard.

The kitten are growing like weeds. They are so well behaved! Never any scratching even when being held against their will. They don’t scratch anything except their scratching post except for my big rolls of batting downstairs. I have had to move them all to an inaccessible spot since that soft batting seemed just right for little kitten climbing. We kept them on kitten food since they were so small, but we are transitioning them to adult cat food now. They seem to like it just fine.

It is hard to get a picture of them playing without it being fuzzy! They were chasing the magic red dot (laser pointer).

Minerva was particularly fond of the doll bed we got for my granddaughter’s birthday

I have been sewing some. The king sized quilt for our bedroom at home has the main center part completed – 80” square. I need to add borders, but I haven’t gotten in the mood. I did finish quilting three quilts for my quilt guild though. As before, just utilitarian meandering, but it keeps me in practice. I am not a person comfortable with completely scrap,quilts, particularly in big pieces. I find these dreadful, but the people who donate fabric to the guild should have no doubt every inch of useable stuff they give to us will be put to good use.

The last one, just before I started quilting it.

I also have made Kevin a pillow case for the travel pillow he uses for his knees at night. We found a little pillow at a truck stop this winter, but it has a satin cover and slips off the bed during the night. A cotton cover keeps it in place better. I am also just finishing up a bunch of bowl cozies I am going to use as small gifts on our upcoming trip.

I modified my fabrication process to pre-wash both fabric and the batting. Then I made sure all three layers (fabric/batting/fabric) are quilted together. Hopefully that help them keep their shape after washing.

We do have the first part of our summer trip planned. In a normal year we would just take off, making reservations only at destinations. This year we are slightly spooked by reports of massive numbers of people on the road, so we made more reservations than normal. We leave on Tuesday, 1 June, to go to Hamilton, MO, home of the Missouri Star Quilt Company and their multiple shops. We will stay there a couple of nights then off to eastern Oklahoma to visit some tourist locations we haven’t seen for 30 years or more. Then we head to Canton Reservoir where I worked as a seasonal park ranger before my senior year in college. I haven’t been back since, so it should be fun. We have reserved a Boondocker’s Welcome site in far eastern Texas off I-40. I figure I will give the hosts a couple of bowl cozies as a thank you. We are hoping for good enough weather to hit up a bunch of Native American sites in New Mexico. Eventually we will head north to Cody, WY for an FMCA chapter rally followed by Gillette, WY for the big FMCA national convention. We then have reservations at Badlands NP during a new moon for Kevin to get some astrophotography done. We will gradually head back to Iowa then, time TBD.

I will be getting some shoulder surgery done when we get back. I have a bone spur that is giving me grief. I have been using cortisone shots to manage it, but I figured it will only get worse. Hopefully there isn’t much rotator cuff involvement. Rehab is something between 2 and 12 weeks, depending on what they have to do. Sigh. Even with an MRI they can’t tell until they get to look inside.

Kevin has been busy making even more modifications and updates to the motorhome. I will post those after we get on the road so I can take good pictures. The expensive one was 600 amp hours of LifeBlue LiFePO4 batteries with internal heaters. I am really looking forward to off-grid camping with those! Some of the less expensive modifications are woodworking and others are 3D printing, and they are quite cool. We even got our yearly diesel maintenance done, this time at the Decorah Truck Country shop. Nice folks. It was a more extensive list than we had for previous yearly, so it also cost more. Sigh. Just the price of owning a diesel motorhome.

And we are off to start packing!

More catchup during COVID times

Since the last post got so long with just seeing things, I decided to add another post about travel and some other things.

We ended up taking a couple of short trips to a nearby county park for to be closer to Kevin’s cataract surgeon. Squaw Creek Park in Linn County, Iowa is one of our favorites. First, it has nice facilities (a FHU section with reservations and a W/E section with no reservations), and second, it is close to two of our kids. We end up doing a reasonable amount of our medical specialty work in Cedar Rapids, Iowa because we know the doctors there. It is about an hour from our house though, so we head to the campground if any overnights are needed. We stayed there in early October and mid-October for 5 days each time, just enjoying the weather and seeing family (outdoors and distanced of course).

We also ended up taking another trip to Red Bay. The slide topper on our big living room slide tore where it was attached to the roof, and the minor fix Kevin made just wasn’t going to last. While we could probably have found someone closer, we had lots of recommendations for a specific firm in Red Bay, so off we went. Of course it could have been just an excuse to get out of the state a bit too, as my oldest son laughed about. We did get gorgeous upgraded slide toppers on all four sides. We decided on a dark red Sunbrella fabric that matches the motorhome very well and which is much tougher than the original vinyl. I thought I had pictures, but I can’t find them. Too bad, because the color is amazing.

Kevin has spent all kinds of time doing things in the motorhome. He managed to fix the roller blind on the driver side with a free part from the blind manufacturer. Tiffin only wanted to sell the entire assembly for some $300!

He mostly has been busy making all kinds of 3D printed parts for organization, mostly at home. This is just a small sample. Every holder on the pegboard was printed.

Plus some Christmas things.

We didn’t put up a Christmas tree this year, just our 10’ long Christmas village. This little display fit right in. It is actually cuter than it looks since my camera isn’t great with white in bright light.

As for Thanksgiving, I was able to cook loads – roast turkey, pies, and stuffing. Kevin smoked a couple of turkeys that mostly went into the freezer in smaller portions. I then delivered to my daughter’s family (they just moved into a new house the weekend before!) and my son who is single. I delivered two portions to him because a workmate was also by themselves this season. We are having a virtual Christmas this year too, though I am not supplying food. Presents are being distributed today, and we are having a Zoom opening later today.

As for future travel, we have been back and forth for months trying to decide if we are traveling to Arizona. We just decided to do so a couple of days ago. Our original plan was to leave on 28 or 29 December, but a storm is rolling into the Midwest then. We now plan to leave on Sunday, the 27th. We will get to central Kansas somewhere on Sunday then head to Oklahoma City a few days where I have family. I am crossing my fingers we stay out of the snow belt, but if it happens, we will just stay put another day or two.

Just hanging around home

We have just been hanging around home for the last couple of weeks. Kevin is really busy working on the motorhome’s electrical system. He has added a Electrical Monitoring System (EMS) that protects against low voltage as well as high voltage situations. The coach had built in surge protection, but low voltage can be really hard on electronics so it is good to manage that too. The EMS detects bad incoming voltage and then shuts down external power so nothing gets damaged. Once everything works again, power is restored..it has already been helpful. The storage unit we have has only 15 amp power, much less than the motorhome really needs. Turns out we were running at 104 volts instead of 110, so some adjustments to the charging system had to be made. Kevin never would have known about the problem without the EMS, at least until electronics started randomly failing.

Kevin has also had a great time planning out the solar system. The panels and controller plus all the miscellaneous mounting hardware have arrived. He has already installed the controller in the storage bay near the batteries, and the panels are in the garage waiting for one of my son’s and my son in law to help in a couple of weeks. They will have a much easier time climbing around the roof than Kevin would! He is still going to supervise, but they should get the entire system installed and operating in a day.

I have been remarkably lazy. I did take the three local grandkids to Vacation Bible School last week which was pretty tiring. I keep forgetting just how much energy children (4 and 8) have! They had a blast though. We are pretty happy with one of the local Presbyterian churches, and we will be joining it soon. They have a much more socially active ministry than my church in Salt Lake City, and I am very comfortable with it. I also visited the ophthalmologist in Cedar Rapids I went to before we moved. As I suspected, I have had another vitreous detachment, this time in my right eye. I knew what had happened as soon as the numerous new “floaters” showed up. As with the left eye a year ago, no retinal involvement so it is just a bother, nothing more.

Poor Lily had surgery Friday to remove a spot that just wouldn’t heal. It continued to weep fluid and scab even after multiple treatments with antibiotics, so we finally had it excised. She has a huge incisision and lots of stitches. She is also in a lot of pain. She is getting an opioid narcotic painkiller every 8 hours, but you can tell from her behavior when it starts wearing off.

The stitches don’t come out for over another week. The vet did send the sample for a path report, but we aren’t expecting any bad news. We all think it was just a spot that was inflamed and never healed. Cats have weird skin issues.

We own a motorhome!

We headed to Sherman’s RV in Sherman, Mississippi on Sunday. We made it to Holly Springs, MS before we gave up. Eleven hours of travel, and I hit my limit! Monday morning we made the last 45 miles, and we bought our new Tiffin RED 37PA. I love it, but it has been tedious getting it ready. The dealer was late getting started, and a few things still needed to be done. We also had our Jeep Grand Cherokee modified to be towed behind the motorhome, and that also took longer than planned. Sigh. We still don’t have everything done, so we are staying a second night in the dealer’s full hookup site. It is just a gravel parking spot, but it looks out on a lovely pond.

Here are some pictures:

Living room has a sofa air bed and a movable recliner

Lots of televisions, and even a fake fireplace which is a good electric heater.

We got a table and chairs instead of a dinette.

Bedroom with a RV king. It is 6” narrower than a regular king.

Really nice bathroom with big shower and two sinks.

It is much brighter than this picture taken under overcast clouds.

We eventually got all the gear unpacked we brought from the travel trailer. Lots of room left! Lily seems to be adjusting well.

Big changes coming

For the last three weeks Kevin and I have been thinking about the timing of selling our house in Utah, buying a house in Iowa (home of most kids and all grandkids), and buying a motorhome (required for long snowbird trips because, well, Iowa). We pulled the trigger last night. The Utah house is listed for sale with the first publicity and open house on 1 March. I am sending price requests to some big Tiffin motorhome dealers for a new 37PA motorhome, and we are checking out Realtors in Cedar Falls, Iowa. It isn’t as fast as it might seem, because we had been talking about the options for over six months, but it almost takes my breath away. The house timing is good. The Salt Lake City area market is fantastic right now for sellers, with multiple offers and top dollar being common. The market in Cedar Falls is solid, not spectacular, and homes are available. Rates are probably heading up, hurting buyers and sellers, so we might as well do it now. The motorhome has a floor plan very livable for us, and we can swing the price. So, off to the real work of clean up, paint, stain, and decluttering. We have a new housekeeper candidate coming to give us a quote (I was ready to fire my old ones anyway), another one with a quote in the next few days, plus a “staging expert” today. We bought boxes, and we are already packing things like clothes and stuff we know needs to be out of the house. Luckily we have a big storage unit to put stuff in. It is still rather breath taking.