We’ve been busy here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. The painter we hired, Gary, started working on prepping the interior of our new-to-us park model home last Friday. He sprayed the interior, including the ceiling in the all of the interior except for the Arizona room addition. He finished spraying on Tuesday and on Wednesday did some touch-up and clean-up.

Saturday morning we played in the annual pickleball tournament. Donna and I teamed up in the 3.0-3.5 group and had a good time. Went 3-3 but all of the games were close. I really don’t mind losing a game if we’re competitive and put up at least eight or nine points.

Wednesday was St. Patrick’s Day and we had corned beef in two slow cookers. I had trimmed the corned beef early in the morning and Donna got them started by 8:30am. I sliced cabbage and potatoes later. Donna had Irish soda bread in the oven in the afternoon. At 4pm, we transferred everything to our new place.

Our friends Chuck and Sue Lines and Dick and Roxy Zarowny joined us on the rear deck for a St. Patrick’s Day dinner. It was pleasant outside, mostly blue skies and the temperature was in the low 70s with very light wind. I was surprised to find the golf course empty. We enjoyed the company and had lots of conversation to go with our meal. Sue brought glazed carrots and Roxy contributed key lime pie for dessert.

We broke up the dinner party early – around 7:30pm. Chuck and Sue had an early morning on Thursday as they were pulling out with their fifth-wheel trailer to head back to Illinois. I was enjoying myself and relaxing so much, I failed to take any photos!

Donna has been busy taking stuff out of the coach basement storage areas – some things we haven’t used in a long time, but we wanted to keep. Now we won’t have to carry everything we own around with us – some things will remain here at the house.

While she was cleaning out one of the bins, she noticed a wet area. There was a very slow drip coming from the inlet to the electric water pump for the fresh water tank. I crawled under to have a look. Getting into the compartment, I banged my head on the door latch. I had to twist a bit to see the source of the leak. It was the filter – really just a metal mesh strainer with a plastic housing – on the pump inlet.

The small cut on my head was bleeding – even small head wounds can bled profusely. Twisting and turning my head while I was stretched out in the compartment caused the blood to run across my forehead and down my nose. I got out and walked to the door of the coach. Donna and Roxy were outside talking. When they looked at me they thought I had been wrestling in a WWE event – blood was running all over my face. It was a minor cut really and I was able to stop the bleeding quickly with a wet paper towel compress.

I put an oil drain pan under the drip – it holds a couple of gallons – and went online to find a new strainer. I ordered one from Amazon that would arrive the next day. While I was checking the leak out, I thought about the spare water pump I had. About six years ago we were in San Diego when I saw another Alpine Coach. The owner was busy repairing a water leak. I asked him what was up. He told me his water pump was leaking and had to be replaced.

He said it was a common issue with the RV Aquajet pump used in Alpine Coaches. He advised me to order a Shurflo 4008 RV Revolution replacement pump to have on hand. His words were, “It’s not if, but when your Aquajet starts leaking.”

Amazon delivered the replacement strainer on Wednesday as promised. I got back into the compartment to compare the part and see what it was going to take to install it. I was shocked to see we no longer had a slow drip – it went from a drop every 10 seconds or so to a steady drip, drip, drip and it was coming from the bottom of the water pump. The Aquajet pump failed. Now I was glad I had carried a replacement to have on hand for the last six years!

I drained our fresh water tank and removed the old pump. The Aquajet and the new Shurflo are different designs with different dimensions. Luckily, the new strainer I got from Amazon was a direct fit on the Shurflo.

The mounting brackets were different, but I could see they would fit on either pump with just two screws. Rather than drill new mounting holes in the coach, I swapped the mounting bracket so I could use the existing holes and original bracket on the Shurflo.

When I got the pump mounted, I had another problem. Due to the different dimensions of the pumps, the water line from the fresh water tank to the inlet strainer was now an inch short. I needed 39 inches of water line and it was only 38 inches. I pulled the old line and rummaged around in the trailer. I found a 44-inch length of 1/2″ pex tubing. Perfect. I cut it to size and was back in business.

After assembling it all, I turned the water supply back on and checked for leaks and found none. I filled the fresh water tank about a quarter full and ran the pump. No leaks, good flow and pressure. The new pump is much quieter than the old Aquajet – it’s nearly silent. Job done!

I have another project that’s taking valuable time from our move effort. The electric heating element on our Suburban 10-gallon water heater in the coach is going out. It doesn’t bring the hot water up past lukewarm. We have to run it on propane to get hot water. That project will be fodder for another post.

I’m continuing to work on my kitchen skills. On Monday, I made miso soup. So what, you say. Well, I didn’t make it from a package – I made it from scratch. That meant I had to make dashi first. Dashi is a Japanese broth that’s the base for a lot of Japanese recipes, including miso soup. I made awase-style dashi which is flavored by boiling dried kelp, then adding bonito flakes as it cools. After straining it, you have dashi.

The miso soup had yellow miso, tofu cubes, dried king black (shiitake) mushrooms and chopped scallions. It was good, but I needed to do a better job of reconstituting the dried mushrooms. I served it as an appetizer while Donna made a proper dinner plate.

She made pan seared scallops with lemon-caper sauce and steamed asparagus on the side.

This was a delicious meal – every bit as tasty as the fancy recipe looks.

The weather has been a little crazy over the last week. We had rain showers Friday and again on Saturday afternoon and the thermometer struggled to top 60 degrees both days. By Monday, we had low 70s but dipped down to 60 again on Tuesday. As already mentioned, St. Patrick’s Day was fine with mid 70s and we hit 83 degrees yesterday. Today’s forecast calls for 80s again before dropping back into the 70s for the coming week.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, 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!