Monthly Archives: November 2016

The Green Flash

Mission Bay RV Resort fills up every year for the Thanksgiving weekend. The park had been fairly quiet since Halloween but it was full on Thanksgiving. Security Supervisor Thomas told me that 70 rigs checked in on the day before Thanksgiving. That’s more than a quarter of the park’s capacity. Kids had the week off from school and many parents had a four-day weekend.

On Sunday, there was a mass exodus as many of the rigs packed up and left. Looking around, I would guess more than a third of the sites are empty now. There aren’t many kids here as they’re back in school and parents are back to work.

Lots of empty sites

Another change occurred after the wet weekend. The strips at the back of the sites are usually grassy. This year most of the grass is gone and it’s just dirt. They must have seeded it at some point. After the rain over the weekend grass is sprouting now.

New grass sprouting behind our site

With the RV park quiet and not much foot traffic, it seems like the grass will have a good chance to grow.

We had periods of rain Monday afternoon. Sini gave me a couple of bottles of beer. I enjoyed an IPA from Green Flash Brewing called Soul Style. They bill it as a tropical flavor. However, it doesn’t contain any fruit or fruit juice – the flavor is strictly from the hops used in the brewing process. It was a good beer and I drank it while watching Monday Night Football.

By the way, the name Green Flash refers to a seldom seen phenomenon as the sun sets. Under the right conditions just as the sun drops below the horizon, the red or orange sun rays appear green for about a second. That’s the green flash – it’s most likely to be seen when the sun drops below the horizon in the ocean.

Donna made a chicken enchilada soup Monday. She had it in the slow cooker all afternoon. It was delicious and just right on a rainy evening.

Chicken enchilada soup

We awoke to a cloudless blue sky on Tuesday. The wind which had been blowing for three days had dissipated. Beautiful weather ahead! I rode the Spyder to the Pacific Beach Recreation Center and played pickleball for two hours. It was nice to be out and about and get some exercise.

The only chore I accomplished was dumping and flushing our holding tanks. Before I dumped, I had to make a repair to our Camco Rhinoflex sewer hose. Last time I dumped the tank, I saw a couple of drops of liquid come from the hose fitting. I unscrewed the fitting from the end of the hose and applied plumber’s grease – a clear silicone grease sometimes called faucet grease – to the fitting and screwed it back together. Problem solved. No one wants a leaky sewer hose!

Last night Donna made a new recipe – crispy dijon tilapia. It was good, but Donna wants to make it with a flakier fish filet next time, maybe rock fish.

Dijon crusted tilapia with asparagus and potatoes

Today we should see a high temperature of 70 degrees. The weather forecast for the coming week looks great. I have a list of projects piling up. Today I’ll have to get busy and start tackling a few things I’ve been putting off. After all, I’m not on vacation, right? It’s a lifestyle.

*Just so you know, if you follow one of my links to Amazon and decide to make a purchase, you pay the same price as usual and I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

Southern California Winter Storm

Over the weekend, the local meteorologists on the news broadcasts were all talking about a winter storm. For someone who spent multiple winters in the north Cascades of Washington and also in Michigan, it’s almost funny.

Here’s the situation. Low pressure cells northeast and east of San Diego pulled the jet stream down the coast. The jet stream dipped all the way down over southern California. This brought moisture from the northwest, resulting in rain all along the coastal areas which then made its way east. It also brought wind – sustained winds of 15-20 mph with gusts of 30-40 mph.

If you saw the NCAA football game between Notre Dame and USC at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, they had several video clips of the palm trees bent by the wind and periods of heavy rain in the first half of the game.

Here at Mission Bay, we had gusty winds and maybe a quarter inch of rain. The rain fell hard at times, but mostly it was short showers off and on. A few miles east of here and in parts of North County, more than half an inch was recorded. San Diego is an area of micro-climates. The coastal areas are usually more moderate than the mesas and valleys to the east.

Waterfowl riding the storm out at Rose Creek inlet

Rain and wind continued on Sunday. Donna took advantage of a break in the rain to go out for a training run. For me, it was a good day to watch football. Some areas had significant amounts of water over the road and we saw news reports of many car accidents as drivers didn’t slow down and aqua-planed, losing control. Another system is supposed to come through the area late this afternoon or evening. Then we can expect to be back to the usual clear skies and warmer weather – the highs only reached the lower 60s all weekend. This was considered a wintry blast.

Last night Donna was watching NCIS on TV. In one scene, I noticed a guitar on a stand in the background of the living room. Not just any guitar – it was a Pelham blue Gibson Reverse Firebird. That’s a fairly obscure guitar. Next to it was what appeared to be a vintage Epiphone tube amplifier. Whoever was responsible for the set must be a guitar geek. I wonder how many viewers caught it. I guess since I did, I must be a guitar geek.

The weekly football pool I enter has been tough. The way this pool works is you have to assign a point value to each game. We only use the Sunday and Monday games, no Thursday Night Football. That meant there were 13 games in this week’s pool. Each game has to have a number from one to 13 – you only use each number one time. If you add up the numbers from one to 13, the total is 91. You want to assign the lower numbers to games that are toss-ups and the higher numbers to the ones you’re most sure of.

Everyone starts out with 91 points. For each game in which you picked the losing team, the point value you assigned to that game is subtracted. At the end of the weekend, the person with highest number of points wins. Once again, I picked nine winners out of 12 games on Sunday – but I lost too many points. Seattle, Arizona and Carolina let me down. I had 11 points on the Seattle game – that killed my chances. Oh well, there’s always next week.

It’s supposed to stay dry for most of the day, but the temperature will remain in the low to mid-60s. Donna is very busy trying to meet her book deadline. I think I’ll get out for some pickleball in Ocean Beach before the next storm blows through.

A Nice Walk

I returned the rental car to Enterprise on Friday after writing my post. The Enterprise agency is on the northwest corner of Garnet Avenue and Mission Bay Drive. After I dropped the car off there, I walked back to Mission Bay RV Resort – a distance of about a mile and a half.

This gave me the opportunity to stop at the Chase Bank across the street from Enterprise. Then I walked to the west end of Figuroa Boulevard where there’s access to the Rose Creek Trail at the end of the street (map).

Access to Rose Creek Trail

Walking home on the trail, I realized how easy it is to take our surroundings for granted. Being in San Diego at this time of year is a beautiful thing. I took my time walking the trail and enjoyed the scenery. It’s not only people that like the winter weather in San Diego – a large variety of birds winter here.

I saw waterfowl in the creek and snapped a photo of a dapper-looking Western Grebe.

Western Grebe

I thought about the flora as well. There are trees and flowers here that you don’t see everywhere. Of course palm trees are found throughout southern California.

Palm tree at the RV park

Bird of Paradise plants can be found in gardens here – including the entrance to Mission Bay RV Resort. These flowering plants are indigenous to South Africa but have flourished in temperate climates like we have here.

Bird of Paradise flower at the RV park

Eucalyptus trees are found throughout San Diego. I don’t recall seeing these trees anywhere else in the country – maybe I just haven’t noticed them.

Eucalyptus tree

Donna was out for a run and our paths crossed near the park entrance. I gave a wave and continued on. Across from the RV park office is another San Diego sight – City Deco Bikes. These are rental bicycles found at many locations – especially near the beach. You can pay for a 30-minute rental (the minimum) at the bike rack and unlock a bike. You return the bike to any city bike rack and it records the amount of time you had the bike. Donna paid for monthly bike access to reduce the cost and she uses them from time to time. Sometimes when she goes out running, she likes to run to the beach. Then she picks up a city bike and rides back to the RV park and leaves it in the rack here.

City Deco Bike

As you can see in the photos, it was a beautiful day for walking. The temperature reached the mid-70s and we had sunny blue skies. This morning it’s overcast with a low ceiling. Rain will move in over the next couple of days and we can only expect to see highs in the low to mid-60s. I’m not complaining though – it’s a great place to be at this time of year.

Turkey Day

Shortly after we arrived in San Diego, I took my favorite watch to Ben Bridge Jewelers in Fashion Valley to have have it serviced. The watchmaker there, Israel Coughlin, had serviced Donna’s watch a couple of years ago. I have an affinity for mechanical self-winding watches. Their intricate design and precise workmanship fascinates me. They have their drawbacks though. A mechanical watch will never be as accurate as a quartz movement. It also needs to be disassembled, cleaned and lubricated periodically. On the plus side, it doesn’t need a battery.

The heart of a mechanical watch is the balance wheel. Different designs oscillate at different frequencies, ranging from 2.5 hertz to 5 hertz. The balance wheel swings back and forth – for example it rotates clockwise to a certain point, then stops and rotates back counter-clockwise. The full back and forth motion is called an oscillation. The movement in one direction (half an oscillation) is called a vibration.

Bear with me here. A watch with a balance wheel frequency of 2.5 hertz ticks five times per second or 18,000 vibrations per hour (vph). The most common frequency is 4 hertz – 28,800 vph. Some watches are 5 hertz which tick 10 times per second or 36,000 vph. The reason I’m going through all of this is to illustrate how even a slight discrepancy in the oscillation of the balance wheel can add up quickly. A fine mechanical watch may have an error of a couple of minutes per month. When you realize that over 690,000 timing events (ticks) of the watch occur every 24 hours, it’s an amazing feat to keep the total timing error down to a couple of minutes per month.

Israel didn’t service my watch due to the heavy workload he had scheduled. Instead he sent it to the Rolex Factory Service Center. They disassembled the watch completely, put the components through an ultrasonic cleaning process and inspected all of the parts. They polished the case and bracelet, reassembled it with special lubricants and calibrated the balance wheel.

Israel called me Tuesday evening and told me my watch was ready for pick-up. They’d had it for five weeks. So on Wednesday, Donna and I drove to Fashion Valley Mall and picked up the watch. It looks like brand new! The only part they replaced was the bezel – it had a couple of fine scratches and was starting to fade a bit. The polishing of the case and bracelet looks fantastic. I’m glad to have my Rolex GMT Master II back again!

Looks new after the service

I had another phone call Tuesday evening. I had reserved a rental car from Enterprise in Pacific Beach a little over a mile away from here. They told me they expected to be extremely busy Wednesday morning – San Diego is one of the nation’s most popular Thanksgiving destinations – and advised me to come early. They were closing at noon on Wednesday and I originally set my pick-up time as 11:30am.

Donna dropped me off at 10am and took the Spyder to pick up some last-minute items at Trader Joe’s. She commented on how empty the Enterprise lot looked. When I went into the office, the manager pulled up my reservation and then said there would be a short wait as they didn’t have any cars but were expecting some soon.

After about 20 minutes of waiting, she asked if I would be willing to take a ride with one of their employees to another location to get the car. They had a car at the Little Italy location just south of the airport. By the time we went there and I got a car and drove back to Mission Bay, I’d been out for over an hour! So much for the advice to come early. I think I would have been better off coming at the original time – maybe they would have had cars by then.

Thursday morning I spatchcocked our Thanksgiving turkey. Spatchcocking is a method of cooking whole fowl by removing the backbone and flattening the breast. This puts the breast, thighs and legs along the same plane and about the same thickness. It cooks more evenly and also takes less time to roast.

Back bone removed

I spiced the turkey and put it on the Traeger smoker/grill. I set it to the smoke setting which is a cool temperature for 30 minutes.

Seasoned and ready for the Traeger

Then I turned it up to 325 degrees. It took about 15 minutes to reach the cooking temperature and I thought it would take about two hours from there. An hour and a half later, I checked the temperature of the breast with a quick read thermometer and was surprised to find it was 160 degrees.

I took the turkey off of the grill and wrapped it in foil. Then I wrapped the foil package in a towel and put it all in a foil bag designed to keep hot foods hot. The plan was to drive up to Menifee for Thanksgiving dinner with my step-dad Ken and his neighbors Ray and Helen. I was so absorbed in the task, I didn’t stop to take a photo of the turkey – it looked marvelous.

Meanwhile, Sini had brought her golden-doodle dog, Ziggy, over to our place. Our plan was to be dog sitters while Sini went with her sons to celebrate Thanksgiving with friends in Pasadena. We would have Ziggy Thursday and Friday until she returned. Ziggy and Ozark the cat get along fine.

Ziggy – our guest

I expected to take about 90 minutes to get to Menifee. I didn’t count on stop-and-go traffic on I-15 from south of Escondido all the way to Temecula. This 30-mile stretch took over an hour to cover. It took more than two hours to get to Menifee.

When I unwrapped the turkey, I was disappointed to see the skin, which looked nice and crispy when it came off the grill, had become somewhat rubbery – no doubt from being held in foil for so long. The meat was still plenty warm and I carved the turkey.

No so crispy now

Donna heated up side dishes in Ken’s kitchen and we all ate together. Ziggy stayed in Ken’s backyard and Donna took her for a couple walks. We had a good time and headed back home around 4:30pm. The ride home was quick – traffic was moving at 75 miles per hour all the way and we made it back in just over an hour.

This morning I have to return the rental car. The weather forecast looks good today – sunny with clear skies and a high in the mid-70s. This weekend’s weather is not so fine looking. The forecast calls for a cold front bringing rain and highs in the 60s.

Preparing for Thanksgiving

Monday was a cool, cloudy day. Showers passed through off and on until well after noon. Donna had an annual check-up appointment in Hillcrest so she decided to take an Uber ride rather than ride the Spyder. I took advantage of the wet weather and rinsed the dirt that had accumulated on our batteries. Washing isn’t allowed here, but with everything wet I figured I could away with a quick rinse job.

I spent most of the day reading. When we had a break in the weather around 2pm, I rode the Spyder to Sprouts Market and bought an 11.5 lb turkey. Our plan is to go to Menifee and have Thanksgiving dinner with my step-dad Ken and his neighbors Helen and Ray.

I’ll spatchcock the turkey and cook it on the Traeger Thursday morning. I think it’ll fit on the grill once I flatten it. Then I’ll wrap it and we’ll make the drive up there. Ken is getting the side dishes.

Donna made a new dinner recipe Monday. She had a pork tenderloin cooking in the slow cooker all afternoon in adobo sauce with chipotle peppers and onion. The result was New Mexico style pulled-pork adobada. She served it over a fried tortilla with a fried egg on top.

Adobada with fried egg

I enjoyed a Blood Red Orange IPA from Latitude 33 Brewing with it.

Blood Red Orange IPA

Later, during the Monday Night Football game, we snacked on the salami and cheese I bought at the farmers’ market.

Meatmen Flagrant Seed and Ooh Mama spicy salami

Great with pricey French hard cheese

On Tuesday, the clouds and rain were just a memory as we had clear blue skies and the temperature reached 70 degrees.

When I was up on Sini’s roof to seal the vent pipe last week, I noticed the shrouds that cover her Dometic DuoTherm air conditioners were cracked. This is fairly common. The plastic shrouds become brittle over time from exposure to the sun and the way they’re mounted places undue stress on the mounting points. When you’re driving down the road and hit bumps, the shrouds can flex. I wrote about the poor mounting of the shrouds when I replaced ours in the summer of 2015 in this post.

Sini ordered replacements from Amazon and had a quick delivery. I think she ordered them Friday night and they were delivered on Monday. After pickleball Tuesday morning, I went over to Sini’s rig to replace the A/C shrouds.

Shroud cracked around the mounting point

I put the tools I would need and a bottle of rubbing alcohol in a backpack and we climbed up the ladder. Halfway up the ladder, Sini handed me the big boxes containing the new covers and foam seals and I placed them on the roof.

Foam seals are used to block airflow from coming through the space between the shroud and the condenser. You want all of the airflow drawn by the electric fan to go through the condenser coil, not around it.

Old foam seal

The foam seals deteriorate over time and should be replaced when you install new shrouds. I peeled the old seals off and cleaned the surfaces with rubbing alcohol before installing the new self-adhesive foam seals.

Old seals removed

Then it was just a matter of mounting the new shrouds. I used the double fender washer method I came up with on our A/Cs. I put one 1″ fender washer with a 1/4″ opening on the mounting screw. I put a second matching fender washer between the shroud and the mounting point on the A/C chassis. This created a clamping surface the distributes the stress of the mounting point over a much larger area. I think this will help to prevent the cracks.

New covers installed.

That’s all there was to it – job done. Sini stayed up on the roof while I installed the new covers. She wants to see how things work and learn what I do to make repairs so she knows what to look for in the future.

Today I’ll go to Enterprise and pick up a rental car for our trip to Menifee. Enterprise closes at noon today. They called me last evening and advised me to come early as they expect to be very busy today.

Today’s weather should be much like yesterday. I’m expecting sunny skies and warmer weather for Thanksgiving. I hope wherever you are, you’ll enjoy a great Thanksgiving with family and friends, regardless of the temperature.

A Well Fed Weekend

I can’t complain about wintering in San Diego. However, we had a little bit of everything over the weekend. Friday was a gorgeous day – fair, sunny skies and a high temperature of 76 degrees.

Sini found signs of water seeping through the roof of her rig and took a look up on the roof. She asked me if I would look at it too and give my opinion. I found two areas of concern – the caulking around a vent pipe deteriorated and had cracks in it and it also had shrunk away from the pipe. Also, her air conditioner shrouds were cracked. I replaced our shrouds about a year and a half ago and posted about it here. The plastic shrouds get brittle from constant exposure to sunlight.

I told Sini she should get some Dicor self-leveling lap sealant to re-caulk the vent pipe. She picked up a couple of tubes at the RV Solutions store in Kearny Mesa. We climbed up on the roof and I showed her how to apply it. The first step is to remove the old caulk. I like to use plastic or nylon instruments for this – a metal putty knife may damage a fiberglass or rubber roof.

These are the tools I used to scrape the old caulk out

Removing the old caulk is the most time consuming part of the job. Then I cleaned the area with rubbing alcohol before putting down a new layer of caulk. The dicor sealant is thick and hard to apply. It takes a lot of hand strength to squeeze it out of the tube with a caulk gun. On a horizontal surface the sealant will spread and flatten out. It makes a good water barrier.

Donna spiced boneless chicken breasts with jerk marinade and I grilled kabobs for dinner Friday night. Another simple, delicious meal.

Grilled chicken kabobs with mashed sweet potato

Donna and Sini planned to go to the farmers’ market in the Little Italy district downtown on Saturday morning. Donna had to back out as she had fallen behind a bit on her book deadline and had too many things on her plate for Saturday. I accompanied Sini instead.

We left early and dropped off Ziggy, her golden-doodle dog, at Petsmart for a bath and grooming on the way at 8am. At the market, we found a vendor selling breakfast crepes. The girl making the crepes had two round hot plates. She would put a scoop of crepe batter – basically eggs, milk and flour – on one hot plate. She used a flat wooden stick half the diameter of the hot plate to spread the batter. She held one end of the stick in the center of the hot plate and swept the other end of the stick in a circular motion around the outer circumference of the hot plate. This perfectly spread the batter in a thin layer over the entire hot plate.

Making breakfast crepes

After a couple of minutes, she flipped the crepe. Then she folded the crepe in half and transferred it to the second hot plate where she had the filling cooking. I had ham, mushrooms and cheese in my crepe. Sini went for a veggie filling. After adding the filling, she folded the crepes into a triangle shape and put them in tapered cup like the ones used for snow-cones. They were absolutely delicious and very filling. Well worth the eight bucks!

I ended buying some hard salami locally made along with sweet Italian sausage. I also bought some pricey cheese – an herbed brie and a hard French cheese.

Later, Donna made cream of celery soup. Instead of celery stalks, she used celeriac. Celeriac is a root crop that comes from a celery variant. She planned to take the soup to her sister’s house Saturday evening where we were invited for an early Thanksgiving dinner.

Cream of celery soup with a dollop of creme fraiche, chopped chives and pomegranate seeds

Donna’s sister, Sheila, made traditional Thanksgiving fixings including a large stuffed turkey.

Stuffed turkey

Unfortunately most of the dinner conversation was focused on politics after the recent election. Since I’m on the opposite side of the aisle from most of the other guests, I found it uncomfortable. We took an Uber ride home at 9:30pm.

Sunday was a typical NFL football day for me with the exception of not watching the Chargers play – they had a bye this weekend. I enjoyed the Dallas versus Baltimore game and also the Seahawks win over Philadelphia.

Donna made fresh marinara and added the sweet Italian sausage from the farmers’ market to serve with porcini mushroom ravioli. I continue to eat well!

Porcini mushroom ravioli with sausage marinara

I started this post with a comment about the weekend weather. After a beautiful Friday, Saturday was another nice, sunny day with slightly cooler temperatures. Sunday was breezy and rain showers moved into the area in the afternoon. The high was only 67 degrees and by nightfall we had steady rain. The rain continued well into the night and this morning we have a few clouds lingering with a forecast high of only 65 degrees. Such is winter in San Diego – I shouldn’t complain.

Unaffordable Health Care

It’s going to be another beautiful day in San Diego. The skies are clear, the sun is shining and the expected high temperature is 75 degrees. But I’m sitting at my laptop not feeling so good. In fact, I’m mad as hell.

Yesterday, Donna and I had a conference call with a representative from Towers Watson – an insurance administrator that runs a brokerage called One Exchange. Up to this point, my former employer offered health care insurance as part of my pension plan. That ends on December 31st. I need to find health care insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) also known as Obama Care.

I have to say, ACA is anything but affordable – it’s an Orwellian doublespeak term. Since the inception of Obama Care, my health care benefits have deteriorated. Three years ago I paid a monthly premium of about $300 for coverage for both of us. I had a deductible of $600 and had nationwide coverage. Two years ago the cost rose to about $400/month and the deductible went up to $1,000. Last year the cost rose again to $500/month and the deductible jumped to $2,600.

Now the costs have risen so much, my former employer no longer offers a health care plan. Instead, they offer a subsidy if you don’t qualify for government assistance. Apparently it’s more affordable for them to fund a health care spending account for retirees than to participate in group health care.

The subsidy they’re offering me amounts to about $1,041/month. Sounds pretty good, right? Add to that the $500/month I paid for health care last year and I should be able to budget a little over $1,500/month for my premium and out of pocket expenses. But here’s where it gets ugly.

The lowest premium I can find in our domicile state, South Dakota, is $1,399/month. That leaves me a little over $100/month for out of pocket expenses. But there’s a rub – it covers nothing until I meet the deductible of $13,100! Basically, I’m self-insured for the first $13,100 and I get to pay $1,399/month for this! If I want to have a plan that’s comparable to what I had before, it would cost $2,367/month but it doesn’t offer a nationwide network.

How is this affordable? I hope this ACA is replaced with something that’s more sensible soon. I’m thankful for my former employer funding a health care spending account for me, otherwise I would be spending nearly three times my current monthly premium for no coverage until I hit $13,100 in costs. We’re looking into private market plans now since we don’t qualify for federal subsidies. End of rant.

On a more positive note, I was able to get out and play pickleball on Wednesday. I had soreness in my foot afterward again, so I think it’s best if I lay off and rest my foot to allow it to heal.

A couple of months ago I replaced our toilet seat. I posted about the way it mounted to the toilet – it was supposed to be a quick release system for cleaning. Well, that may be good in theory but in practice the quick release would release every time you closed the lid. I got tired of the seat and lid flopping around, so I ordered a new seat and lid on Amazon.

The new one is made of bamboo and has brushed nickel hinges that mount with stainless steel screws. The quick release concept doesn’t work for me. I’m more than happy with the conventional and secure method of mounting the hinges.

New bamboo toilet seat and lid

The photo makes the seat look much lighter than the flooring – in reality the difference in color isn’t so noticeable. I think the flash on my camera may have affected the color tone.

Securely attached with brushed nickel hinges

I threw the quick release seat in the dumpster.

I also set up the decorative laser light that Sini gave us. I have it pointed at a tree in front of our site. The points of light look like a bunch of tiny Christmas lights in the tree.

Points of light from the laser on the tree

It also splashes a few points of light on our coach.

Laser lighting up the front corner of the coach

Thanks Sini!

Donna made a spicy beef stir-fry for dinner. She cut flank steak across the grain and made it with shirataki noodles. This was a simple recipe but it was so good! I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.

Stir-fry with shirataki noodles

I don’t have a plan for today. I think I’ll finish a book I’ve been reading and maybe go for a bike ride and enjoy the great weather after our dental appointments at 1pm.

Turkey on the Traeger

I resumed pickleball on Monday at the Ocean Beach Recreation Center. In my fourth game, I suddenly experienced pain behind my middle toes on my right foot. I don’t know for sure what happened, but I’m guessing that I pushed off with my foot to get to the ball and somehow strained my foot. Donna wondered if it was a gout flare-up. I haven’t had any issues with gout for about four years – I take allopurinol and it’s been very effective.

Monday evening Sini told me the floor was wet again around her toilet. I had replaced the seal on the bottom of the bowl and thought I’d solved the problem. Tuesday morning I went over to check it out. I found the toilet was loose – I could rock it back and forth. Apparently the high density closed-cell foam seal had packed down after I mounted the toilet. I tightened the four nuts on the mounting studs and I think that will solve the issue. Note to self – after replacing a toilet seal, re-torque the mounting nuts after a day or so!

I took it easy for most of the day, resting my sore foot. Donna bought a turkey breast half at Sprouts Market and we wanted to roast it on the Traeger wood pellet-fired smoker grill for dinner. I decided to brine it. This was new to me, I haven’t brined meat before. I made a solution with a quarter cup of salt and two tablespoons of sugar in one quart of water. I put the turkey breast in a pot and added the brine, then put it in the refrigerator around noon.

I made a run to Trader Joe’s to replenish my scotch supply. Trader Joe’s has a house brand of Scotch whisky (there’s no ‘e’ in whisky when it’s Scotch). Their house brand is bottled by Alexander Murray and Company, a bottler in Scotland that buys whisky from various distillers and private labels it. In California, grocery stores can sell liquor. Trader Joe’s has a variety of scotch whisky under their own label – both single malt and blended.

I tend to prefer single malt Highland Scotch – preferably from the Speyside region – over the smoky Islay varieties. Trader Joe’s only had 16-year-old Speyside on hand and I thought it was too expensive. I ended up with a bottle of Glenfiddich 12-year-old scotch.

Back home, I put the turkey breast on the Traeger at 5pm. I figured it would take 75 to 90 minutes to cook. I was just guessing though as I couldn’t find a recipe for a half breast which was slightly less than three pounds. I started with the Traeger set at 325 degrees. After 40 minutes, I upped the temperature to 375 as the skin wasn’t browning. Fifteen minutes later, I raised the temperature to the highest setting, 450 degrees.

This is completely backwards from how I wanted to cook it. Next time I’ll start at a high temperature to crisp the skin, then reduce the heat and cook until an internal temperature at the thickest part of the breast reaches 165 degrees. In the final minutes of cooking, I basted the turkey breast with Fisher and Wieser pomegranate and mango chipotle sauce.

Although I was all over the board temperature-wise, the turkey breast came out good. It was moist and flavorful.

Traeger roasted turkey breast

Donna served it with cumin roasted cauliflower dressed with sherry vinegar and baked acorn squash mashed with butter and orange marmalade. Delicious.

A meal fit for a king

Sini joined us for dinner and we enjoyed the meal and company. I paired my dinner with a Blood Orange IPA from Latitude 33 brewery while the girls had red wine with theirs.

Blood orange IPA

Sini brought us a gift. It’s a red and green laser light – it emits hundreds of tiny red and green spotlights over a large area – up to about 3,000 square feet. I set it up at the front of the coach and aimed it at the tree in front of our site. It makes the tree look like it’s filled with tiny Christmas lights. I’ll try to get a photo of it tonight.

My foot feels better today. I think I’ll head out for pickleball again. The weather was cooler yesterday with partly cloudy skies. We hit a high temperature in the mid 70s. Today is forecast to be cooler again with a high of about 70 with partly cloudy skies.

Toads and Toilets

My previous two posts were about my trip to Seattle to help Sini Schmitt drive her coach down to San Diego. There was a learning experience along the way that I should share.

Hitching a car with four wheels down via a tow bar was new to me. We pull a cargo trailer which is very straight forward – it connects via a 2 5/16″ ball on a conventional trailer hitch. Sini’s car was connected to the coach with a Roadmaster Falcon tow bar. The tow bar was pretty easy to understand.

Her tow vehicle (toad) is a Saturn SUV with a V6 engine and automatic transmission. When you tow this vehicle with the wheels down, rolling on road, it requires a certain procedure to ensure adequate lubrication of the transmission.

Sini had a page printed out that listed the procedure. First you set the parking brake, then with your foot on the brake pedal you start the engine. With the engine running, shift the transmission lever to reverse. After a few seconds – I waited 10 seconds – shift to neutral and wait. Continue shifting until it has run through all of the gears ending in low gear. Then shift back to drive, then neutral. Let the engine run for three minutes in neutral before turning off the engine. This will have circulated transmission fluid throughout the gears, clutch packs and bearings. Leave the key in the accessory position so the steering wheel doesn’t lock. Release the brakes. Then remove the 30 amp ignition fuse from the fuse panel in the engine compartment to prevent the battery from draining.

When we hooked up the toad in Edmonds, we ran through this procedure. When I got in the coach to drive away, I released the parking brake on the coach and put it into drive. Normally the coach would roll forward as soon as I released the brake pedal. It didn’t move. Something wasn’t right. Then I realized, I didn’t release the parking brake in the toad. I put the coach back in neutral and set the parking brake. I went out to the toad and sure enough, the parking brake was still set. The procedure for preparing the toad transmission for towing was so simple, I didn’t follow the step-by-step checklist and made a mistake. This procedure needs to be followed before towing every day or every 7 hours of towing time.

Four days later, Sini did the pre-travel procedure on the toad and drove the coach as we pulled out of the Palmdale Elks Lodge. We were driving down the road when she suddenly said, ” I left the parking brake on.” I told her to pull over immediately. We stopped and I got out of the coach and could smell hot brakes. The parking brake on the toad was still set. Luckily it wasn’t powerful enough to lock the wheels, the rear brake drums rotated and the shoes and drums were hot from the friction, but no real harm was done.

The lesson is to actually go step-by-step down the instruction sheet and use it as a checklist.

Sini’s coach is in a site almost directly across from our coach in site 120. Our windshields are facing each other. On Friday while we were visiting, Sini said the floor was wet around her toilet. Water damage is always a concern in an RV. I checked it out and it seemed like the water may have been coming from the inlet valve. Water is plumbed to a valve that’s operated by a foot lever. When you step on the lever, it rotates a ball valve in the toilet, opening the toilet so it can drain into the black tank. Simultaneously, it opens the water inlet valve to flush the toilet and refill the bowl with fresh water.

I removed the trim around the bottom of the toilet bowl and the cover from the foot lever. I found a loose cap on the bottom of the valve and tightened it. I hoped that was the extent of the problem.

Water inlet valve

I left the trim off so the area could dry. Saturday morning Sini stopped by with her dog, Ziggy. Ziggy is a big dog, a golden doodle. After Ziggy and Ozark the cat checked each other out at the screen door, we let Ziggy enter our coach. The cat and dog got along fine. Ozark was curious at first, then she just hung out while Ziggy laid on the floor.

Ziggy and Ozark

Sini told me the floor was still wet behind the toilet. I figured the seal between the bottom of the toilet and the drain pipe to the black tank was bad. Sini and her friend Linda were planning to take a drive through the wine country up by Temecula. On her way she could stop at the RV Solutions store in Kearny Mesa to see if they had a replacement seal. I told her the toilet was a SeaLand Traveler. Later, she phoned me and then put the guy at RV Solutions on the phone. He needed a model number for the toilet to find the proper seal. Luckily, Sini had a left a key to her coach so I could go in and check out the model number – it was 511. He had the replacement seal.

Once I knew Sini had the replacement part, I started working on the toilet. I shut off the incoming water to the coach and removed the water lines at the toilet. Then I removed the four nuts holding the toilet down on the studs with a 7/16″ wrench. I retrieved a small fan from the our trailer and set it up to dry the area.

Toilet mounts on four studs

Later, when Sini came home, all I needed to do was lift the toilet off of the mounting studs and set it aside. The old bottom seal was clearly in bad shape. It had crushed down and was paper thin. It also shrunk in diameter. The new seal was about half an inch thick and about an inch wide in cross section. I was so absorbed in the task at hand, I neglected to take photos.

I scraped the old seal out and reinstalled the toilet with the new seal. Sini turned on the water supply and I checked for leaks. I had a drip at the inlet connection. I had her shut the water off, I tightened the connection and she turned the water on again. Job done! I left the fan in the bathroom to continue drying the area. With that job done, it was time for happy hour. I opened a bottle of IPA from San Diego’s Saint Archer Brewing called Citra 7. Good stuff!

India Pale Ale

Sunday morning Sini confirmed all was good with the toilet. The four of us, along with Ziggy, climbed into Sini’s SUV and drove over to Leilani’s Hawaiian Cafe in north Pacific Beach near the corner of Cass Street and Tourmaline Street. It was loco moco time! Loco moco is a Hawaiian breakfast dish consisting of two scoops of rice topped with a hamburger patty, two eggs over medium and brown gravy. I’d be a real fat man if I had it every day, but it’s a treat to have every now and then.

Loco moco

After breakfast we drove up to the Veteran’s Memorial on top of Mount Soledad. I wrote about Mount Soledad in this post. I pointed out various land marks to Linda. It was her first time up Mount Soledad.

Linda, Sini and Donna on top of Mount Soledad

It turned out to be a very warm day – the temperature reached the 80s. I spent the rest of the day indoors with the air conditioners on and watched NFL football. After the Chargers game I opened an IPA from Mission Brewery. This is a more traditional IPA and very well-balanced.

Mission Brewery IPA

Today’s forecast calls for more warm weather. I’ll head over to the Ocean Beach Recreation Center for pickleball as I get back into my normal routine.

There and Back Again – Part Two

The last post ended with us finishing a 400-mile day at the Seven Feathers Casino. Seven Feathers is located between Roseburg and Grants Pass, Oregon. The casino is very RV friendly – they have a full service RV park on the west side of I-5 and a dry camping RV lot on the east side adjacent to the casino. We stayed overnight in the free dry camping lot.

Monday morning, as we approached Grants Pass, the terrain became hilly. I drove about 40 miles to the Manzanita Rest Area at milepost 61 and stopped there. After letting Sini’s golden-doodle dog, Ziggy out for a break, she took over driving.

The hilly terrain became mountainous as we crossed the Siskiyou Range and topped out at Siskiyou Summit more than 4,300 feet above sea level. This gave Sini a chance to experience driving up steep grades and once over the summit, she had to control the coach on a long descent.

When you’re climbing a grade in a motorhome, you want to maintain momentum. This requires a vigilant watch of the rearview mirrors so you’re aware of faster car traffic overtaking. When you have a slow moving tractor-trailer rig ahead, it’s good to time your move to the left lane to pass the slow moving truck with a break in the left lane traffic. If you slow down and stay behind the slow truck, you’re stuck. You probably won’t be able to overtake once you’ve slowed down too much. I explained this to Sini before she took the wheel. She did a great job of staying aware of the traffic situation and maintained our speed over the pass.

On the long downgrade to Medford, Sini made good use of the exhaust brake (sometimes called a PacBrake) and used good braking technique to avoid overheating the brakes. The exhaust brake helps to slow the coach. It’s not as effective as the Jacobs Engineering two-stage engine compression brake on our Alpine Coach, but it works well enough.

A little over ten miles into California, we hit the rest area at mile post 786. Sini had over an hour at the wheel and gained valuable experience handling the coach in the mountains.

Sini is all smiles at the wheel

I took over driving again when we left the rest area. It was familiar terrain as we drove through the mountains past Mount Shasta. Before we left on this trip, I wondered how the National RV Tradewinds coach would handle. It’s built on a Freightliner chassis and it’s powered by a Caterpillar 3126B six-cylinder diesel. The 3126B has a displacement of 7.3 liters (439 cu. in.) – smaller than the 8.9 liter (543 cu. in.) Cummins ISL in our Alpine Coach. The turbocharged 3126B provides 300 horsepower and 860 lb-ft of torque versus the 400 horsepower and 1200 lb-ft of our ISL. However, the Tradewinds is a lighter coach than ours by about 5,000 pounds. I found the power of the 3126B to be adequate and the handling of the Freightliner chassis was better than I expected.

One of the things that helps make the Tradewinds easy to drive is the shorter wheelbase compared to our Alpine Coach. The Tradewinds is about 36 or 37 feet long overall and has a wheelbase of 208 inches. Our Alpine coach is 40 feet overall and has a wheel base of 278 inches. The extra five plus feet between the axles is noticeable – the shorter wheelbase makes it easier to maneuver.

Our next stop was at the Olive Pit in Corning, California. This is a favorite stopping point for Donna and I – we always stop there when we pass through the area. We stretched our legs and shopped – I bought a couple of jars of bleu cheese stuffed olives. Sini and Linda made purchases as well.

I thought about stopping at the Rolling Hills Casino where Donna and I stayed last spring, but we wanted to get a few more miles under our wheels. Sini took over driving again when we left the Olive Pit and had the opportunity to drive through town and down a two-lane road. While she was driving, I was looking ahead on my smart phone. We wanted to stop somewhere with a sports bar so we could have a cold one and watch the Seahawks on Monday Night Football – Sini is a Seahawks fan.

I found the Colusa Casino about 60 miles down the road. I phoned ahead and found they offer free overnight RV parking and they had a sports bar. Bingo! Sini pulled into their parking area and we found a large, level gravel lot with striped pull-through RV spaces. Perfect! We put in about 330 miles for the day.

I was back at the wheel Tuesday morning and drove through Sacramento where we hit US99. This took us through Stockton, Modesto, Fresno and eventually Bakersfield. I told Sini I thought we could make it to Tehachapi and stay at the Mountain Valley RV Park where Donna and I stayed two years ago. We had a plan – but it was soon dashed. Sini found out the Mountain Valley RV Park was closed for the winter. Tehachapi is nearly 4,000 feet above sea level and it gets cold in the winter.

Sini continued searching for a place to stay for the night. She found an Elks Lodge in Mojave, but no one answered the phone or returned her call. Then she found an Elks Lodge in Palmdale. The original plan was for Sini to get more driving time on Tuesday. However, once we decided to press on to Palmdale, I stayed at the wheel and kept our speed over 65mph. I wanted to get there before dark – remember the electrical problem with the taillights?

We didn’t make it before sundown and I drove the last 20 minutes with the lights on. The Elks Lodge in Palmdale had electric and water hook-ups in pull-through sites for $20. When we parked, Sini saw the taillights on the toad were working. It must have been a poor connection at the plug that worked itself out as we drove. We went into the lodge and had a drink while we watched the election returns. I had put in 400 miles and nine hours at the wheel. I was whipped. We had covered nearly 1,200 miles altogether and were less than 180 miles away from Mission Bay.

Wednesday morning Sini drove out of the Elks Lodge. She had the opportunity to drive through city streets then we hit highway 138. There was construction on this highway and Sini had to run the gauntlet. Concrete barriers were on the right side of the lane with no shoulder – only inches to spare on the right while she hugged the center line on the left. Oncoming trucks created pucker factor at times. This went on for a dozen miles or so.

Then we hit I-15 south and drove into heavy traffic in San Bernadino. We took the I-215 route – Sini was driving 60mph on an Interstate seven lanes wide. The right lane was filled with tractor trailer rigs. We were in the number two lane with cars flying past at 80 mph. At times she had tractor-trailers on both sides. We stopped for fuel in Menifee after a couple of hours of high stress driving. Sini had earned her wings – after that stretch, I thought she could drive the coach anywhere.

I drove the final leg to Mission Bay RV Resort. After she checked in, I told Sini she was driving – it was time for her to learn how to back in to an RV site. She had already looked a the site location and had a plan. She wanted to circle the park so the site entrance would be on the driver’s side. She felt more comfortable backing in from that direction. I went over hand signals with her and got out to direct her. She backed in and positioned the coach in one shot! No more driving lessons needed for this gal!

Sini, Linda and Ziggy at Mission Bay.

You might be curious about sleeping arrangements on our road trip. Sini and Linda shared the bedroom in the back of the coach. I slept on a blow-up mattress in the living room with Ziggy on her dog bed. Ziggy is the mellowest creature – she never barked on the trip and slept quietly through the nights.

It was an exhausting road trip, but we accomplished what we set out to do.

Sini and me at Mission Bay

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Monthly Archives: November 2016

The Green Flash

Southern California Winter Storm

A Nice Walk

Turkey Day

Preparing for Thanksgiving

A Well Fed Weekend

Unaffordable Health Care

Turkey on the Traeger

Toads and Toilets

There and Back Again – Part Two

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