We’ve had a couple of interesting visitors here at Richardson Park.

The first was our neighbor who set up in site 39, next to us. His name was Paul Manuel and he came down from Tacoma in his National Tradewinds motorhome. He’s a bit of a traveling minstrel – he plays the flute and attends music festivals around the area. He once owned a deli and now he and his son set up a food trailer at festivals and are known for their Philly cheese steak sandwiches. They also make subs and other fare, but the cheese steak is the most popular menu item and their claim to fame.

He sat on a picnic table in the center of the park and played his flute – he’s very good. Donna went over to compliment his playing and then invited him to visit with us for a while. He has a six-acre hobby farm in southeast Tacoma and invited us to park at his place if we’re ever in the area. He left yesterday around noon, but will return for the music festival in Veneta July 12 -14th.

The other visitor came by around noon yesterday. His name is Mike Justice – a blog follower that has a farm near the park. He came bearing gifts – he brought hazelnuts from his farm that he roasted and seasoned with a barbeque salt and they are delicious. He also gifted us with two bottles of double IPA from Pelican Brewing on the Oregon Coast. I paired it with last night’s dinner of shrimp over cauliflower rice. Nice. Thanks, Mike!

Any time you see the word “double” in a beer description, it means the recipe has been kicked up a notch – just like adding “imperial” to the name. In this case, the beer has a higher gravity with a 9% ABV. Of course, to offset the maltiness of such a high gravity brew, additional hops are used for bittering.

With the afternoon temperature hitting 95 degrees, Donna took a floatie tube to the beach area of the lake and cooled off. I passed on going in the water as I have a small spot of dermatitis on my right foot. I took a short stroll down the path through the woods from our site to the marina area of Fern Ridge Lake.

There’s a nice grassy park next to the marina and a host with a 5th-wheel trailer set up there.

Richardson Park is surrounded by working farms. There’s everything from hazelnuts to strawberries growing around here. We even have a cherry tree in our site that’s bearing fruit. I could hear a farm implement at the edge of the park and wondered what it was. It turned out to be a hay baler.

Source Engineering phoned in the afternoon and told me the sway bar links arrived. We made arrangements to have them installed this morning at 9:30am. Donna booked another night here, so we’ll move on Friday morning.

It only took about an hour to have the old links removed and new links with new bushings installed. What a difference proper tension on the sway bar makes – much better cornering and a smoother ride.

The sway bar is a “U” shaped steel torsion bar with the lower portion of the “U” flattened and elongated. The lower part of the “U” – a straight section – is attached to the front axle. At either end of the “U,” there’s a mounting point where links join the ends of the sway bar to the chassis frame rails.

Here’s how it works – picture making a sharp right turn. Centrifugal force will cause the body and chassis of the coach to roll to the outside of the turn. In this example, the body rolls to the left, compressing the suspension on the left side while extending the suspension on the right side.

With a sway bar attached to the axle and frame rails, as the chassis tries to roll to the left, the right end of the sway bar is pulled up. Meanwhile the left end of the sway bar is being pushed down. This creates a torsion – a twisting force – on the length of the sway bar attached to the axle. Of course the steel torsion bar resists this force and lessens the amount of body/chassis roll. It greatly enhances vehicle handling.

Today the high temperature should reach the mid-80s. Tonight should be cool with a low in the mid-50s and tomorrow should be sunny with a high around 80. We plan to head out tomorrow morning. The wind is forecast to be fairly calm and it should be a good day for travel.