Category Archives: Cat

Two Concerts and a Parade

Another busy and fun-filled week has flown by. Saturday morning Donna had her final rehearsal with the Viewpoint Concert Band. When she came home, Mike and Jodi Hall picked us up and we headed out to Apache Junction for the Superstition Blues and Brews festival. The festival was in a park at the junction where Apache Trail heads northeast toward Canyon Lake and Tortilla Flat.

We found parking in a dirt lot across from the park and checked in at will-call – we’d purchased our tickets in advance. They had a large crowd – more than expected. It was a beautiful day -clear blue skies and the temperature reached the upper 70s. We unexpectedly ran into our friends, Kelly and Frank Burk there. We sat on the grass in camp chairs we brought and enjoyed an afternoon of music and craft beers in the sun.

Superstition Mountains viewed from our spot in the park

It was a good time. After the concerts – there were a number of good bands performing, we went to Frank and Kelly’s place. They ordered take-out Chinese from J&M and we had an impromptu dinner.

Last Sunday, we drove out to Buckeye to visit my daughter, Jamie, and brought her a couple of goodies. She’s in a back brace and her mobility is somewhat limited. One of the items we brought her was a “reacher” – a mechanical picker-type device so she could pick things up from the floor without bending over or reach things above her on a shelf or cabinet. We picked up take-out from Jersey Mike’s and had lunch together with her and Francisco and I was glad to find her in good spirits.

Sunday was Donna’s concert day – it was actually in the evening. The concert band performed from 7pm to a little past 8pm and put on a good show. The seating arrangement of the band changed and now Donna was in the front row alongside the other two clarinets and I could hear her better. I was put in charge of a crew that collected donations for the band near the end of the show. The donations go into the music fund for the band – with a large concert band, sheet music for all of the instruments adds up. They typically pay over $800 for their music folio.

The rest of the week was mostly typical – pickleball, tennis and great weather. Of course, yesterday we celebrated St. Patrick’s Day, where everyone pretends to be Irish. I played pickleball in the morning. When I left the courts, vehicles – mostly decorated golf carts – we’re queuing up for the park’s St. Patrick’s Day parade. There were a couple of old green hot rod cars in the parade. I thought, “Midget-San is green, why not?”

I came home and wiped the dust off of the car and fired it up to join the parade.

There were about 100 vehicles in the parade. The route took us around the park and people were lined up everywhere to watch and collect candy thrown from some of the carts.

It was fun and something different to do. Donna was out getting groceries, but said she wants to be in the parade next year to throw out candy.

Last week, Donna picked up a cat perch from a woman in the park. She’d bought it for her cat, but her cat never used it. Donna set it up in the Arizona room and Ozark has put it to good use. She likes to get on the top platform and nap or go inside a little cubby a couple of feet off of the floor.

After months of living in our home, I wonder how Ozark will react to life in the motorhome this summer.

As usual, we had some interesting dinner plates last week. On Thursday, Donna grilled a pork tenderloin with bourbon brown sugar sauce. She served it with brown rice and broccoli.

On Sunday, she cooked chicken thighs in the slow cooker with bacon, fennel and onions in white wine and chicken broth with a little tomato paste. She shredded the meat and served it over mashed potatoes with fennel fronds.

Of course, yesterday was the traditional St. Patrick’s Day meal. She had corned beef with carrots and onions in the slow cooker all day and added cabbage in the afternoon. She made sides of champ – mashed potato with sliced green onions steeped in hot butter and heavy cream – and freshly baked Irish soda bread. We had our St. Patrick’s Day meal out on the back deck before sunset.

The weather has been fantastic – most days have been in the low 80s except for Tuesday when we hit 87 degrees. We should be in the low 80s today and tomorrow before the temperature dips to the low 70s on Sunday and Monday – then we’ll be back in the 80s. I need to sign off now and go buy an oil filter for the Nissan truck – it’s oil change time.

*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!

And Then There Was Stroganoff

I haven’t posted in over a week. That’s mainly because I haven’t had anything exciting to write about. We’ve been slowly getting settled in to our place here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort, mainly staying indoors. It’s still hot here in Mesa, Arizona.

Ozark the cat has definitely settled in. She doesn’t like travel days, although she’s perfectly happy in the coach when we’re stationary – especially when we stay put for a week or more. Back-to-back travel days aren’t her thing – they really aren’t our thing either. Ozark can roam from room to room here and she has a few favorite spots.

I think Ozark would be happy if we just stayed here permanently. Donna and I are content, but we know we’ll get the hitch itch sooner or later.

I’m happy to have our Traeger wood pellet fired smoker/grill available again. When we hit the road last spring, I had to leave it behind. Without our cargo trailer, I just didn’t have room for it. Last week, I bought a two-pack of USDA Prime tri-tip roasts at Costco. They were a little over two pounds each. I think when you take it out of the package, it’s correct to refer to them as roasts. Once you grill them and cut it into portions, it’s more appropriate to call them steaks. I wrote a post about tri-tips here.

I prepared one on Tuesday with my usual tri-tip seasoning – salt, pepper and garlic powder in a dry rub. I set the Traeger at 220 degrees and let it cook for about 90 minutes. Before I took them out of the Traeger, I preheated our gas grill to 450 degrees. I transferred the tri-tip to the grill and seared each side for three minutes. They were cooked to a perfect medium rare with an internal temperature of 130-135 degrees.

Donna served it with steamed green beans and sweet potato tots.

The USDA Prime tri-tips were $12.99/lb at Costco. A pack of two tri-tips ran just over $50, but we’ll get several meals out them. The first tri-tip was an excellent dinner on Tuesday, we had at least half of it left over.

On Saturday, Donna prepared beef stroganoff with the remainder of the tri-tip. She used noodles from Sprouts that were billed as “home made egg noodles.” The stroganoff was delicious and once again we had leftovers for another lunch meal.

I have a number of projects that need to be attended to, but I’ve been procrastinating due to the heat. We’ve had only two days that weren’t triple digit heat since my last post. I got a start on the End-Fed Half-Wave (EFHW) antenna for my ham shack. The EFHW will allow me to seamlessly tune the 10-meter, 20-meter and 40-meter bands by going through my MFJ auto-tuner with my Yaesu FT-991A radio. I hope to get the antenna finished by the next weekend.

My guitar body, neck and hardware are scheduled to arrive via FedEx tomorrow. That will be my priority in the next week or so. I already received a full compliment of special tools from Stew-Mac to finish the frets and set everything up. I also decided to sell my Egnater guitar amplifier and cabinet and build another amp. I’ll write about that later, once I get it underway.

Tomorrow morning, we’ll be up at dark-thirty. I will drive Donna to Phoenix Sky Harbor airport for her 6am flight. She’s going back to Vermont to visit her parents. They have plans to travel to Ogunquit, Maine to spend a couple of nights on the coast. I’ll be a bachelor for a week – I’ll have plenty to do with the guitar project and ham stuff. I also need to get out to the storage facility and see about making a permanent fix for the left front body panel on the coach. I need to figure a way to get it back into proper shape so I can rivet the front section to the frame.

Donna has been getting out early in the morning to play pickleball or tennis before it gets too hot out. I’m not up for pickleball at 6:30am, so I’ll wait for cooler temps to get back on the courts.

After a couple more hot afternoons, the forecast calls for temperatures in the mid-90s for the rest of the month. That’ll be a relief.

Ponies and Snakes

I mentioned in my last post that Tye put us up in a spare bedroom. He also invited Ozark to stay – they have two cats in the house, Ollie and Frankie. Ozark made herself at home, exploring the place and finding favorite spots. Early Thursday morning I awoke to the sound of a cat fight. I quickly ran downstairs to see what was up. Ollie came flying past me with Ozark hot on her heels. Ollie scampered under our bed while Ozark crouched on the floor. I picked Ozark up and put her on the bed. Situation resolved, the cats didn’t get into it anymore, I guess they established their pecking order.

Donna went out for a walk in the early morning. To her surprise, she came across a couple of ponies wandering in the road. She worried about them being in the road, so she led them across the street. They wandered off down a driveway. She didn’t think they belonged there judging by the barking dogs, but at least they were off the road.

Later we went out for a ride in Tye’s Polaris side-by-side ATV. This ride is the deluxe ATV – four seats and HVAC-equipped. That’s right – it has a hard top, windshield, side windows and air conditioning! No dust in our face and we beat the heat. He drove us up on the canal path above his house. We went all the way to the Little Gem Motorcycle Park – an off-road motorcycle park with challenging hill climbs and trails.

On the way back, we stopped at a small gift shop called Grit and Grace. They had an eclectic assortment of merchandise – everything from local honey to antiques. I was interested in the end-grain cutting boards they had for sale, but didn’t buy anything. Then we drove the ATV back to Tom’s Cabin for lunch – it was the cafe we ate at the day before.

Later, Donna prepared chicken breasts which she fileted and pounded. Tye grilled them and Donna served them with a dijon sauce and garlic-smashed potatoes and French green beans with toasted almonds on the side. It was the only home-cooked meal we had at Tye’s place.

On Friday morning, Donna went out for an early walk again. This time she walked up a trail to the canal, having seen the route from the ATV the day before. She crossed the canal and climbed high on the hill. She took a couple of pictures.

Hole in the rock looking down on the canal

She encountered a gopher snake in the path. Some people call them bull snakes and they are common in the foothills of southern Idaho. Gopher snakes are harmless, but sometimes they’re mis-identified as rattlesnakes. Their narrow, tapered tail lacks rattles though. They feed mainly on rodents and can follow them into burrows – thus the name gopher snake.

We went out for breakfast at the Blue Ribbon Cafe in town. It was a hearty meal and very good breakfast fare. After that, Tye drove us up highway 52 to Black Canyon Park. This is a public park on the Black Canyon Reservoir. It’s a beautiful setting with a nice boat ramp and ample parking. There are grassy areas and a sandy beach. The park and beach were full of people on a hot Friday. There’s no charge for day use or the boat ramp and parking. On the way back, I asked Tye to stop at Grit and Grace again. I decided to buy the end-grain maple cutting board.

Lousy photo of the end-grain maple board

Later, we went to the airport and picked up Tye’s life partner Karen. She flew in from San Diego with her 10-year old grandson, Sebastian. It was 5:30pm by the time we left the airport and we stopped at the Texas Roadhouse in Meridian for dinner. The restaurant was a zoo on Friday night and it took over an hour to get a table.

Donna and I decided it would be best if we moved on from Emmett Saturday morning. The forecast called for temperatures reaching 106 degrees over the weekend and we thought we shouldn’t leave the coach out in the direct sun – the temperature inside the coach was likely to top 110 degrees. I figured if we moved up toward McCall, we could find some relief from the heat and boondock in the shade of the forest there.

We took US52 west out of Emmett and hit US95 north. Donna found a boondocking spot east of New Meadows in the Payette National Forest. It turned out to be an adventuresome ride – I should have scoped it out on Google Earth, but Donna had detailed directions she found in the Escapees Days End directory.

I should mention that Ozark was not amused when we plucked her from Tye’s house and put her in the coach. She thought she’d found her new home where she could lounge around in comfort and rule the roost. Back in the coach, she gave us the evil-eye. When she realized we were about to hit the road, she burrowed into her new hidey-hole behind the pillows on the bed.

East of New Meadows, we found Cemetery Road and turned north past a few cabins and farm houses. Then we hit a forest service road. It was incredibly dusty – about like the forest service road back in Arizona on the first night of our current odyssey. We came to a fork in the road with a puzzling sign. We were looking for the sno-park. Sno-parks out west are typically a large gravelled lot where snowmobilers can trailer their rigs in to trailheads. The sign had two arrows for the sno-park, they seemed to be pointing on each fork. I walked a short way down the right fork and found another puzzling sign. This one was aimed at hunters and gave a few rules indicating it was private land. It also said no overnight camping. Later I realized the private land was behind the sign, adjacent to the National Forest.

So, we took the left fork. It was a mistake. This took us up a steep, narrow dirt road with a turn that had a sweeping view of the valley way below – and no guardrails. Donna said later that she was scared to look in that direction and also very worried that we would not be able to get turned around. After a couple of miles of traveling this road, I saw a gated spur road on the left. The gate was about 100 yards up the road. I stopped and considered my options. At that point, I felt it was best to pull into the spur road, disconnect the truck so I could back out and get us turned around. So that’s what we did. Coming back down the hill made it impossible to turn into the road to the sno-park. So we got out of there and backtracked to ID55 east toward McCall. We knew there was another sno-park with easy access – we stayed there with Mark and Emily Fagan in 2016 – you can read about it here.

We found two other RVs in the large sno-park lot and set up. I disconnected the truck and we drove into McCall to wash it. It was covered with grime from the dusty forest service road. I’ll need to get the coach washed soon as well. While we were in town, we went to Frenchie’s for lunch. They serve Louisiana fare such as po’ boy sandwiches and seafood chowder. We enjoyed our lunch on the balcony in the cool air.

We had a quiet night in the sno-park and got back on the road by 9am. We went back toward New Meadows and picked up US95 north again. We’ve been on this route a couple of times before, but going in the other direction. This was our first time heading north on this section of highway. We had a hard climb up White Bird Hill to the summit at 4,245 feet above sea level. We dropped a bit of elevation and rolled through the Camas Prairie with wheat fields extending far into the horizon. Our route followed the Salmon River through Hell’s Canyon. Eventually we followed the Clearwater River and dropped into Lewiston where it meets the Snake River at 700 feet above sea level.

The climb up Lewiston Hill was on my mind. It was 85 degrees outside and the hill climbs to 2,756 feet in about four or five miles. When we started the climb, I was going about 50mph and registered boost pressure of 25psi. I knew this wasn’t sustainable. At that boost pressure, the load on the Cummins ISL diesel was too high and we’d overheat. I turned on the four-way flashers, slowed to about 35mph in third gear at 1,900 rpm and maintained an engine coolant temperature of 195 degrees all the way up. Job done – we reached the Palouse and it was rolling hills with forest and wheat fields from here on.

We called it a day when we reached Moscow, Idaho. We pulled into the fairgrounds and found a 50-amp electric only site for $20/night. The 50-amp service was a welcome amenity as the afternoon heated up. We gained an hour along the way – northern Idaho is in the Pacific Time zone. We’ll rest up for two nights here before we continue north to Coeur d’Alene. We can expect daily highs in the 90s there for the next couple of weeks.

Soldering Station

I mentioned our friends, Jeff and Deb Spencer (RollingRecess) in my last post. They planned to arrive here at Juniper Campground on the Ririe Reservoir in Idaho on Monday. They had been camping in and around Yellowstone National Park before heading here. This campground has one loop that’s only available by reservation – it’s fully booked up through the Fourth of July holiday – and two loops that are first-come-first-served. Over the last week, we’ve watched as a few people pulled out in the mornings from their sites, which were occupied again by noon or 2pm at the latest. After that, we see people pull in with their RVs and circle the loops without finding any open sites.

We advised Jeff and Deb to come early. They asked us to keep an eye on site B18, which is directly behind us. There has been a fifth-wheel trailer in the site since we arrived here last week. Luck was with them. I saw the guy in B18 packing up Monday morning. He pulled out around 9:45am. Donna took a chair over and her exercise mat and worked out until Jeff and Deb showed up around 10:00am and claimed the site. We’re neighbors! We’ve crossed paths with Jeff and Deb several times over the years.

I also mentioned in my last post that my guitar amplifier went kaput. I pulled the chassis to see if I could find the problem. Once I had it out and looked it over, I found the issue right away. A capacitor had blown. I’ve never had this happen before, but I’ve heard of it happening. Usually it’s caused by a voltage spike or overheating – in either case, the dielectric in the capacitor can fail and an internal short circuit across the conductor foil results in the blow-up.

As you can see in the photo, the dielectric in this capacitor is made from paper. Now that I found the problem, the next question was – what can I do about it? Here’s the problem – when we packed the motorhome to hit the road for the summer, I only packed a few hand tools that I felt were essential. Unlike before, when we were on the road full-time and had everything we owned with us, we left a lot of stuff behind in our home in Mesa, Arizona. One of the things I left behind was my soldering station.

I told Donna the capacitor was probably a two dollar part, but with no way to desolder it from the board and solder a new one in its place, I needed to find someone that could do it for me. Monday morning I called Mike’s Music – a music store we saw on Saturday when we went to Idaho Falls. They didn’t have a technician in-house, but they referred me to Gem Pro Audio. I called Dean at Gem Pro and he said he could do it if I brought the amp in – he wanted the whole chassis so he could test it.

I found his little shop in a small industrial park. I could see Dean was up to his ears in work – he had amplifiers, stereos, speaker cabinets and other various things stacked up waiting for repair. I told him about my situation, camping at the reservoir and only staying in the area for another week. I showed him the bad capacitor. He said he could have it done that afternoon. We talked a little more and once he knew I understood vacuum tube amplifier circuits, he proceeded to tell me all about the amplifiers he’s building and his plans to retail them.

He looked at the bad capacitor again and said he thought the failure was due to the fact that many of these Chinese-sourced circuit boards use the cheapest components they can get. In this case, the capacitor was rated for 16 volts. The transformer output for this part of the amplifier was rated at 15.5 volts. That doesn’t leave much tolerance for any voltage variation. It was probably a couple of pennies cheaper than a higher rated capacitor. He said he would put in a new 1000uF capacitor rated for 25 volts. He told me to stand by for a moment and took it to his bench. It took him about five minutes to install the new capacitor and the amp worked! Then I saw him chop-sticking the circuit.

This is a common troubleshooting method where you use a non-conductive probe, like a wood chopstick, to move wiring harnesses or tap on connectors. When he did this, the amp started cutting out. So, there was another problem. He said if I wanted to go get lunch or run an errand or two, he could probably have it ready in an hour or two.

I came back about an hour and half later and he was done. He showed me the connector pins he removed from the transformer harness – they weren’t making solid contact. Rather than replace the pins, he just hard-wired the harness in place. My bill came to $60.43 – the capacitor was about what I figured – $2.29 plus tax. The labor was Dean’s minimum bench charge of $58.00. I wish I had my soldering station, but he did a good job and I think his price was fair.

Here are the blown capacitor parts – you can see the voltage rating on the case

My amp is working fine again. I also pulled out my Gibson L-130 acoustic guitar and restrung it. I haven’t played the acoustic guitar lately and I’m always happy after I take it out of the case – it’s a fine instrument.

Monday afternoon Jeff and Deb joined us for happy hour and we chatted for a couple of hours. Yesterday, Jeff took his GMC truck to the dealer in Idaho Falls for service in the morning and I went down and picked him up. Around 3pm, they were finished with the work, so I drove him back to Idaho Falls and while I was at it, I picked up a few things we needed at Fred Meyer.

Sunday afternoon I made a batch of Japanese fried rice (yakameshi in Japanese). Donna grilled a new-to-us chicken recipe which featured a lime vinaigrette. She marinated the chicken in the vinaigrette and after grilling, served with a drizzle of the vinaigrette plus thinly sliced jalapeno and chopped fresh cilantro. Tasty!

When I make a batch of fried rice, it’s enough for several servings, but it keeps well in the refrigerator. Tuesday evening I prepped vegetables – zucchini, red pepper and onion for Donna and she grilled the veggies to go with another new recipe – baked ling cod with a miso glaze. The fish was fantastic.

Miso-glazed Ling cod, grilled vegetables and leftover fried rice

As always, we’re eating well.

The weather has been a little warmer the last couple of days with mid to upper 80s. The forecast calls for 90 degrees over the holiday weekend. Lucky for us, Ririe has turned out to be a great place to beat the extreme heat that’s descended on most of the western states.

Another Jetpack Blow-up

We left Thompson Springs around 10:30am Thursday morning as planned and backtracked on I-70 westbound through Green River, Utah. We turned north once again on US191 about five miles west of town. It was a relatively easy drive until we hit Indian Canyon just north of Helper. We drove this route back in 2014 and recognized some of the landmarks, but I didn’t remember how tough the climb out of the canyon was. We finally topped out over 9,100 feet above sea level.

Our next stop was at Steinaker Lake State Park, north of Vernal, Utah. We had reserved a site with water and 50-amp electrical service. It was hot once again and we wanted 50-amp service to run both roof-mounted air conditioners. Although our site was a pull-through, the roads and paved sites are narrow and tight. Our “pull-through” site had a really sharp turn before the narrow exit – no way could we drive through it. I disconnected the truck from the back of the coach in anticipation of reversing out of the site in the morning. We were at an elevation of about 5,200 feet above sea level.

Donna went for a short hike around the reservoir and shot a few pictures.

After a mostly quiet night – we had some gusty winds that woke us up a couple of times – we were back on the road Friday morning. Three straight travel days were wearing Ozark the cat out – she’s not too keen on the travel days.

Our route northbound on US191 had us climbing again. On one section of road, there was a sign warning of sharp curves with 10 switchbacks over a four-mile stretch. Once again, I kept an eye on our engine coolant and transmission fluid temperatures as it was hot outside – around 90 degrees. On hard climbs, I slow down and downshift the transmission manually to keep the engine RPM around 1900. By downshifting, I reduce the load on the engine by utilizing torque multiplication through gear reduction. Running at higher RPM keeps the radiator fan spinning at higher speed and circulates the coolant through the engine quickly for efficient cooling.

When we crossed the state line into Wyoming, I remarked to Donna that I’d never driven in Wyoming without seeing antelope. For the next 15 minutes, I wondered if I jinxed myself before I saw a lone antelope buck about 75 yards off the roadside.

We hit I-80 about midway between Green River, Wyoming and Rock Springs. We checked in at the Sweetwater Events Center – we’ve stayed here a few times and never had a problem getting a site. It’s a huge property with arenas, race tracks, a golf course and about 1,000 RV sites. There were only three or four RVs in sight when we arrived Friday afternoon and a few more showed up on Saturday.

We paid for four nights ($114) and set up. We took the truck into town to stock up on groceries at Smith’s Grocery store. After dinner, Donna saw our Verizon Jetpack mifi jump off of the window sill! The lithium-ion battery pack had blown up! This happened to our last Jetpack a couple of times before it finally went kaput after about three or four years. This one is about three years old. I put a back-up battery in it and it turned on briefly before an error message stating “no battery” appeared and it shut down for good.

Saturday morning I went to the Verizon store at the White Mountain Mall. The woman at the store there told me there was a recall on the Verizon mifi and I needed to call a special phone line for it. I looked at the recall notice in the store and it didn’t include our model (6620). She told me I needed to call – she couldn’t help me. I made the phone call and as I suspected our model wasn’t included in the recall.

I knew there was another Verizon store about a mile away and I went there. The woman there told me she sold her one and only Jetpack a few days earlier. Then she told me there was a third Verizon store about half a mile up the road. I went there and they had two Jetpacks in stock. I bought a new model 8800L Jetpack mifi and we’re back in business. The Sweetwater Events Center has wireless wifi, but it’s not 100% reliable.

We headed down to Bunning Park near the old downtown area for the Blues and Brews Festival a little before 3pm. We attended this festival a few years ago and had a great time. Last time, they had only a handful of breweries participating and a couple of very good bands. This time we found many more breweries represented, a larger audience and the opening band was not so good.

The second band was unusual and they sounded good. What was most unusual was their drummer. He sat on a wooden box and used soft-tipped drumsticks to drum against the box. The box had a microphone or pickup inside to amplify it. It actually worked well.

Admission was $40 and it included unlimited 7-ounce beer samples. I had a wristband and they gave me a miniature mug – the vendors were supposed to check wristbands and only fill the 7-ounce mugs – but a few people had pint glasses that they filled with multiple pours into the approved 7-ounce mug. Donna was the designated driver, so she didn’t pay or get a wristband.

I knew the third and final band would be good when they opened with Too Rolling Stoned by Robin Trower. Their band was called Stones Throw and they were very good.

We had a good time people watching and listening to music. We bugged out of there at 7pm after eating burritos from the Taco Time food truck onsite.

In my last post, I mentioned meeting Curt Mangan and touring his guitar and bass string factory. When I talked with him, he told me they were selling strings as fast as they can make them. They have warehouse distributors in England, Europe and Asia – I think he said Japan and Singapore – as well as around three hundred retailers in the US. But he surprised me by saying the majority of his sales come through his online store! I think I’ll change my guitar strings sooner rather than later so I can make a fair comparison against the strings I’ve been using instead of waiting for these strings to sack out. If I wait until these strings lose their tone, anything will sound better, so I won’t be able to accurately judge if the Curt Mangan strings are equal or better.

We had a couple of visitors today! One of Donna’s tennis friends from Viewpoint, Val Tremelling and her husband Shorty, live about 100 miles north of Rock Springs. Donna sent a message to Val on Friday that we were here in Rock Springs and if they happened to be in town, be sure to let her know. As it turned out, they were on their way to a family BBQ and stopped by to see us before heading there.

The temperature here reached 90 on Friday and Saturday. Today is cooler – in the mid 80s with gusty winds. Tomorrow should be cooler before it heats up again on Tuesday. We plan to pull out of here on Tuesday and follow US191 up to US89 south of Jackson, then hit US26 into Idaho. That’s the current plan, we’ll see how that shapes up.

Rocky Mountain Ripoff

In my last post, I mentioned the appointment at Rocky Mountain Cummins in Avondale. I knew it would be a long day, so we made arrangements for Donna to go to my daughter, Jamie’s, house with Ozark on Wednesday afternoon and spend the night there so they wouldn’t have to spend Thursday at the shop with me.

I called Rocky Mountain Cummins on Wednesday to confirm the appointment. They had the parts and asked me if I could be at the shop by 6am so they could get an early start. I decided to head over there Wednesday afternoon once Jamie picked up Donna and Ozark. I planned to spend the night in their lot – they have 50-amp RV electrical service pedestals at the east end of the lot.

Traffic on I-10 eastbound was light and I set up in their lot by 5pm. I did a minimal set up – just hooked up the power cable and extended one bedroom slide. This would make it quick and easy to get packed up again in the morning. I passed the time by sitting in a folding chair outside with a couple of cold ones and played with my Yaesu FT3D handheld transceiver.

I was able to hit the South Mountain East Valley Repeater Group repeater and make contact with some knowledgeable ham operators. I learned more about using the digital modes and how to use “rooms” with the Yaesu Wires-X function.

I was up early and at the head of the service line at 6am. The mechanic had the coach in the shop and started working at 6:30am. I wasn’t able to find anyone to let me into the customer waiting lounge until 7am or so. I had the place to myself and read a book. They aren’t very good communicators there – I didn’t hear from anyone all morning.

At 11:30am, I went outside and got the attention of a woman in the shop. They’re very strict about keeping people out of the shop – employees only. I asked her to give me a progress report. She checked with the mechanic and told me all was going well. He would go to lunch soon and thought he would have the job buttoned up around 2pm.

I walked a few blocks down the street to Subway for lunch, then returned to the customer waiting lounge. A little after 2pm, I went down to the shop area again and he was parking the coach out front. Around 2:30pm, they had the paperwork done.

When I reviewed the invoice, I had some questions. When I first brought the coach in, I told them I had a fuel leak and it appeared to be coming from the lift pump. The mechanic checked it out and visually confirmed the lift pump was leaking. Then he did something they call a Guardian Inspection. I never asked for this – it turned out to be an upcharge – they charged me $360 for diagnosis. Really? He made a visual inspection of the lift pump – that was all I asked for.

Then I saw a few other puzzling charges on the bill. There’s a $50 “Electronic tooling fee.” I asked about that – the lift pump replacement is strictly a mechanical repair – no electronic tooling or programming is required. The only answer Jerry, the service writer, had was, “It was on the estimate.” I said estimates are just that – an estimate. It doesn’t give carte blanche to bill for work not performed. Then there was a $75.36 hazardous waste fee. That’s a pretty specific number – I asked what hazardous waste was generated that cost that much. He didn’t have an answer. Then there was the shop supplies fee of $120.57 – another specific amount. I understand shop supply surcharges to cover things like solvents, aerosols or sealants that may have been used, but a $20 charge would more than cover that at a tidy profit. I was being ripped off.

They wouldn’t budge on these phony upcharges. I paid the bill, but I’m going to file a complaint with the Arizona Attorney General Consumer Protection Division.

While I was out, I topped off our fuel tank at the Pilot/Flying J Travel Center in Avondale, then came back to our site at Leaf Verde RV Park in Buckeye. I was set up again by 4pm. I skipped pickleball on Friday. I was feeling a little run down after spending Wednesday night at the noisy Cummins lot and dealing with the repairs on Thursday. Plus, it was hot – all week we had highs in the 90s with overnight lows around 70 degrees.

I should mention the air traffic around here. Luke Air Force Base is located in Glendale, near here. It’s the home of the 56th Fighter Wing, the largest fighter wing in the world. It is also the primary flight training site for active duty fighter pilots. We see and hear F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Force aircraft flying overhead most days. These are the most advanced fighters the military has.

They’re noisy, but I enjoy watching them fly. You have to scan the sky well ahead of the noise to see them as these speedy planes cover a lot of space before the sound reaches us.

On Saturday, I hit the pickleball courts with Donna at 8:30am. It was the first time I’ve played since June! I was a bit rusty, but held my own. The wind kicked up making play difficult – it takes a lot of the skill and finesse out of the game. We played for two hours.

The wind continue to increase throughout the day as a cold front moved in. It remained gusty overnight and all day Sunday. We didn’t go to the courts on Sunday. This morning wasn’t very windy – the wind had died down after a couple of raindrops fell overnight. It was cold – around 50 degrees as we headed to the courts. We warmed up quickly playing pickleball in the sun.

The forecast calls for highs in the low 60s today and around 70 degrees for the rest of the week. We’ll move out of here on Saturday and head to the east side – Mesa.

Wild Visitors

After I wrote my last post on Wednesday, Donna and I hiked down a trail to the beach. It was only about half a mile, but the soft, powdery sand made it a tough slog in places. We could see a large spherical object ahead high and dry in the sand, but couldn’t tell what it was. When we got closer, I could see it was an old, damaged mooring buoy.

Although these steel buoys are quite heavy, they’re buoyant when they’re foam filled or sealed airtight. They’re usually anchored to large concrete blocks and boats or ships tie up to them.

The level of the Great Salt Lake is low right now and the beaches are expansive.

Near the water,the sand is full of brine flies. We saw people swimming to the north near the beach access and Island Buffalo Grill and also saw one person on a paddleboard.

Back at our site, we had a visitor.

I saw another large coyote earlier, then this guy came wandering by, presumably looking for mice or any other easy meal.

Later, while I played around with ham radio, Donna brought Ozark the cat outside in her expandable carrier. It’s the safest way for Ozark to enjoy some fresh air and the outdoors – the coyotes would make short work of a cat here.

Ozark the cat enjoying some fresh air outdoors

Later, Donna made a simple dinner by grilling green chile turkey burgers topped with avocado and served it with grilled zucchini, peppers, onions and corn with cotija cheese.

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you might recall back in 2018 when I had to replace the house battery bank for our coach. At that time, I opened my wallet and stepped up to Lifeline AGM batteries. I haven’t regretted it. These batteries are maintenance-free and really perform. When we’re dry camped, I run the inverter all day and night. The batteries never fall to 50% or lower. I charge them by running the generator for two to three hours in the morning – when we make coffee and have breakfast – and another two or three hours in the evening – when Donna prepares dinner.

I watch the state of charging on the Heart Interface monitor. There are three stages of charging with our smart charger. It starts with a bulk charge and the monitor shows 14.0-14.5-volts and up to 100 amps. This current measurement is showing amperage at the voltage going into the batteries, so 100 amps at 14 volts is about 1400 watts. Our generator can produce up to 7,500 watts (7.5kW). If you remember my post about 30-amp and 50-amp service, you might wonder what 7.5kW equates to. If we apply Ohm’s law and do the math, we see that our Onan Quiet Diesel generator puts out 62 amps@120V on two legs (L1 and L2) – about 30 amps per leg. Anyway, our battery charger goes into the second mode – called absorption – after 15 minutes or so. This mode charges at constant voltage while amperage drops – this mode takes longer, up to three hours. Finally the charger reaches the final stage, float charging. This mode charges at low amperage and about 13.3 volts. The Lifeline AGM battery bank reaches this state anywhere from 90 minutes to 180 minutes of charging time.

When we boondock, it’s easy to think if it as “free” camping, but it isn’t really free. The generator run time has a cost – it consumes fuel and hours on the generator eventually lead to preventive maintenance. We usually average a little over half a gallon of diesel fuel per hour and I change oil and filter at 150 hour intervals. I figure it’s about $9/day. We don’t boondock very often, so going to solar power to charge the battery bank doesn’t pencil out. If we boondock 30 days per year, that’s only about $270/year for the generator. It would take a long time for a solar installation to break even at that rate.

Our neighbor at Antelope Island State Park may have to sharpen his pencil though. He told me they had been there for two weeks. He started his generator at 7am and ran it until well after dark each day!

In addition to the coyote in our site, we had a mouse feeding by the front door (much to Ozark’s delight), then Friday morning, a bison wandered by.

Bison are often referred to as buffalo, but the zoologists tell us they aren’t really buffalo. By this, they mean they aren’t related to the water buffalo of Asia or the cape buffalo of Africa. I still think of them as buffalo though. The same can be said of pronghorn antelope. The zoologists maintain they aren’t true antelope as they have no connection with the antelope species of Africa. They’re antelope to me though.

Friday morning we packed up – I had loaded the Midget in the trailer Thursday afternoon. We stopped at the dump station on Antelope Island. I had pre-scouted the dump station, but it turned out to be tighter than I thought. We came through unscathed though. As we were pulling out of the dump station, three rigs lined up to dump. Our timing was impeccable – waiting for three rigs to dump could have taken up to an hour.

Our route took us southbound on I-15 past Bountiful and into Salt Lake City. The interstate was the usual jungle of cars travelling too fast and too close together. We went west on I-80 and escaped the city along the southern edge of the Great Salt Lake. We turned south at UT36 which took us through Tooele. I last came through here in 2009 when I came to the World Superbike races at Miller Motorsport Park by motorcycle from Mesa, Arizona with my friend, Mason. Tooele has really grown since then.

We made a quick stop at the south end of town for lunch at Subway. Then we were on our way again. Once we left Tooele, the road became very quiet with little traffic. ID36 eventually runs into US6 and we continued south. Our destination was an unusual place. We planned to stay overnight at Fort Deseret State Park. Donna found information on dry camping there.

What we found when we arrived was surprising. Although it’s designated as a state park, there are no offices or buildings of any kind. There are no services – no water, no restrooms or vault toilets – not even a trash can. It’s just a flat, unpaved lot with a couple of old picnic tables and a couple of placards at the ruins of Fort Deseret. The ruins are just what’s left of the adobe walls that surrounded the fort.

Our original plan was to go to the Saint George, Utah area from here. That plan evaporated when we found out all of the RV parks and campgrounds in the area are booked full. This wouldn’t normally be the case after Labor Day, but 2020 is anything but normal. One park manager told Donna that many people changed their plans and extended their stay in Saint George because of the wildfires west of there. Many others that planned to go to Yosemite, for example, halted their trip west there. Also, people from California and parts of Nevada had escaped the smoke and ash by taking their RV to Saint George.

So, we’re on to plan “B”. Today we head down to Cedar City where I booked an 80-foot long pull-through site for the next four nights. This will allow us to catch up on laundry and figure out our next steps. We’ll have a week to get to Lake Pleasant, Arizona west of Phoenix.

The skies are still smoky and we can expect daily highs in the lower 80s in Cedar City. The overnight lows should be in the mid-50s – just right for sleeping with the window open.

Cedar Hats

We went to Alana and Kevin’s place Sunday afternoon for a visit. We didn’t really “visit” much – they’re in the middle of a large project. They’re repainting their house and had a hydraulic lift they rented to reach the second story and roof trim of the house. This large lift was an expensive rental and they were making the most of it and we didn’t want to interrupt their progress.

I was able to watch the Formula One race from Silverstone, England they had recorded for me on their DVR – thank you very much. Donna brought her clarinet and some sheet music and practiced outdoors in the back yard.

Earlier in the day Donna, went out for a nice bike ride. She rode to La Conner and went across the Swinomish Channel on the Rainbow Bridge.

View south of the bridge – two kayaks on the water

Once she crossed the bridge, she was on Swinomish Indian tribal land. She found a small park with covered pavilions called Cedar Hats.

Monday was my middle daughter, Jamie’s, birthday. I talked to her briefly on the telephone but she was at work so we had to cut it short. Other than that, I didn’t accomplish much beyond making a few ham radio contacts. I know some people wonder what the big deal is about ham radio.

For me, it comes down to two main ideas. I can make contact with people that are great distances away from. Okay, so what – a cell phone does that and is easier. But, would I make contact with a random person in Alaska or Australia or even Japan? I did that over the last few days. Anyone can hail anyone else on the radio and start a conversation. The conversation I had with the guy in Melbourne, Australia was a hoot. After awhile, he told me he had to go because his wife “had brekkie on.” Aussies and Brits often refer to breakfast as brekkie. Although it was Monday afternoon for me, it was Tuesday morning in Australia.

The other thing is emergency contacts. We know from experience with natural or un-natural disasters, like hurricanes or the huge explosion in Beirut, infrastructure goes down. Phone lines, cell towers and Internet are useless in these situations. Many ham operators volunteer for emergency service through Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) or Amateur Radio Civil Emergency Service (RACES). Ham radio doesn’t require Internet or phone service – in many cases, just a battery and antenna for the radio will suffice.

Donna ordered a new carrier (crate) for Ozark the cat. The old one was fine when Ozark was a kitten, but it was a little cramped for a long day on the road now. Donna found a collapsible/expandable carrier and Ozark loves it. She goes in it just to relax on her own volition.

Donna came up with a couple of new dishes this week. She made corn fritters to go with honey/sriracha glazed chicken thighs and baby squash from the farmers’ market. The corn fritters were made with fresh corn cut from the cob.

Honey/sriracha glazed chicken with corn fritters and baby squash

It was excellent. Last night she made lamb rib chops with a rosemary, garlic, salt and pepper marinade. We bought these rib chops at the farmers’ market in Dolores, Colorado and kept them frozen.

Lamb rib chops are tender and very tasty, but you don’t get a lot of meat off of them. We had mashed potato and green beans to go with the chops.

I woke this morning to the sound of rain drops hitting the roof of the coach. Here in western Washington, it’s inevitable – we’ve been here for two and half weeks. If it didn’t rain in the next few days, people around here would be wringing their hands over a drought. The forecast calls for a high of 66 degrees today. It should be dry with temperatures in the mid to upper 70s through the weekend. We plan to pull out of here on Monday. We’ll be retracing our route with a four-night stay in Winthrop before going back to Coeur d’Alene.

Antenna Farm

Alana, Kevin and the kids headed over to eastern Washington on Wednesday. Our granddaughter Lainey had to move from her apartment in Pullman where she’s a student at Washington State University. They would be back on Saturday.

Thursday and Friday, Donna and I drove over to their place in Arlington to feed cats, water the potted plants and pick up mail and packages. It was uneventful on Thursday, but on Friday we found evidence of raccoons ransacking the cat food.

On our way back on Friday, we made a stop at Little Mountain Park. Donna discovered this park on one of her bicycle rides. Little Mountain Park is a 522-acre park just outside of town on the south side. The road into the park rises steeply to the parking lot at the summit, 934 feet above sea level. There are 10 miles of hiking trails in the park – most of them have steep climbs or descents. There are two viewing platforms – the south platform is adjacent to the parking lot and the north one is a short hike from there.

The south viewing platform overlooks the Skagit Valley with views of Puget Sound, Camano Island and Whidbey Island. On a clear day you can see the Olympic Mountains across the sound. We didn’t have a clear day – there was a lot of haze which you can see in the photos below. We’ll have to go back on a clear day.

View Southwest – Camano Island on the left, Whidbey Island on the right

One of the packages I picked up at Alana’s house was a tripod I ordered from Amazon. I used a great little tripod to mount the Comet GP6 antenna for my ham radio – very sturdy. I wanted to order another one to put up the Diamond CP-610 antenna for the 6-meter and 10-meter bands, but they were on backorder. So, I found a different one and ordered it.

I assembled the antenna and put it up on Friday. I wasn’t entirely happy with the new tripod – it seemed a little flimsy compared to the first one. The neighbors must think we have an antenna farm – they keep sprouting up.

The Diamond antenna is a bit of a beast. The actual antenna is 21 feet tall and has radials that extend about three feet, mounted on a 10-foot mast. After hooking it up, I played around on the 6- and 10-meter bands but couldn’t find a signal. Later, I took the antenna down – I didn’t trust the set-up in case it got windy overnight.

Saturday morning, I put the antenna back up. Just as I got it in position, I was distracted by Ozark the cat coming out of the coach. I’d left the door open – Ozark usually just stands or lays on the steps and looks outside, but she jumped out onto the grass this time. I let go of the antenna mast and went to retrieve Ozark. The antenna wasn’t stabilized and came crashing down, damaging the radials. I was lucky that it fell straight back across our site and landed in the grass without hitting anything else.

I disassembled the antenna and boxed it up. Lesson learned. I found a sturdy tripod on Amazon and won’t use the flimsy one again. Hopefully tomorrow, I’ll be able to order a couple of radials from Diamond. The radial extensions shouldn’t be much money and it’s an easy fix.

I’ve been having a blast with the ham radio. I found a repeater in Sequim – about 42 miles across the sound as the crow flies from here. This repeater is linked to something called the Winsystem. This links repeaters across the country and around the world allowing me to communicate over great distances by hitting the repeater 42 miles away! I had discussions with guys in Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona and Texas. It’s incredible, but I really want to try to make distant contact over the air – that’s why I got the bigger antenna.

The weather has been variable. We went from sunny and 85 degrees on Thursday to partly sunny and 78 on Friday, then cloudy and 76 on Saturday and they say we’ll be back in the mid-80s today with rain coming tomorrow!

Galloping Goose

It was too windy on Tuesday to play pickleball. We’ve had warm, dry weather and gusty winds – a bad circumstance for fire danger. Two fires have been burning since lightning strikes ignited them last Saturday. On Sunday, I saw a small helicopter flying overhead. It was apparently being used to fight the fires. The smaller fire was northeast of Dolores and we could see and smell smoke from that fire when we played pickleball on Monday. This fire is called the Loading Pen Fire and appears to be contained.

The other fire is between Mancos and Durango and it’s called the East Canyon Fire. On Tuesday, I saw a large Chinook helicopter outfitted to carry water or fire suppressant flying directly over us at La Mesa RV Park in Cortez, Colorado. Presumably it was heading to the Cortez airport for refueling. I don’t understand why the powers that be used a small helicopter initially and only brought out the big unit when the fire grew to 1,100 acres and people had to evacuate. I understand it’s less costly to operate the smaller helicopter, but if it’s not able to contain the fire and then you have to bring out the big aircraft, what have you saved? The big Chinook flew over about an hour ago, so it’s still in service fighting the fire.

Donna and I did our weekly grocery run at Safeway on Tuesday. Safeway has the better meat selections – they have meat cutters onsite – while the City Market seems to have better produce. We bought a couple of very nice looking beef filet mignon steaks to grill. I also bought a lean top round cut for London broil to use for jerky. I’m still tweaking my jerky recipe and it’s really good! I prepped the jerky and had it marinating in the refrigerator Tuesday afternoon. While we were going through the produce section of the store, I saw a variety of fruit that cracked me up – they looked like the animations I’ve seen of the Wuhan coronavirus. It’s called kiwano, sometimes referred to as horned melon.

I mentioned in my last post about the rough night Ozark the cat had over the weekend. I’m happy to report she’s recovering with no sign of infection and not limping. I’m not sure if her nails will regenerate normally – time will tell.

Ozark the cat resting and recovering with Donna

We played pickleball Wednesday morning, hitting the courts at 8am and played for two hours. When we came home, I started smoking the jerky on the Traeger smoker/grill. I pulled the jerky from the smoker at 2pm. After cleaning up, we drove up to Dolores – a little over 10 miles northeast of here. We wanted to check out the train museum and the farmers’ market they have from 4pm to 7pm on Wednesdays.

The train museum turned out to be closed due to the pandemic. I shot a photo of the Galloping Goose in front of the museum. The Galloping Goose is one of seven railcars made by the Rio Grande Southern Railroad (RGS) in the 1930s. Six of them are still around. These railcars were originally designed to haul mail. The RGS was financially strapped at the time and it was too costly to run steam engines to haul mail. So they developed what they called “motors” from modified automobiles – Buick and Pierce Arrow.

The motor in Dolores is Galloping Goose number five. It was re-bodied with a Wayne bus body in 1945 and the power unit upgraded to a war surplus GMC engine. In 1950, RGS lost the mail contract – it was more efficient to use road carriers by then. RGS modified four of the motors by cutting windows in the compartment and installing seating and put them into service as tourist rides – this is when the Galloping Goose name was added to the railcars. Goose number five was restored in 1998 and runs occasionally on the Cumbres and Toltec Line (we saw a steam engine on that line in New Mexico – pics here) and on the Durango and Silverton tourist line.

We left the museum and walked along Central Avenue. Dolores is an old western town in a narrow gulch along the Dolores River. The town was established in 1900 and was serviced by the Rio Grande Southern Railroad. There are only three or four east-west roads in the town which is about one and a half miles long and only a quarter of mile wide (north-south).

Typical building on Central Ave, Dolores

The farmers’ market was next to the museum in Flanders Park behind City Hall. It was small but we enjoyed walking through and picking out a few items – mostly farm fresh produce and also some homemade salsa.

Fresh produce at Dolores farmers’ market

After we returned from the trip to Dolores, I grilled the filet mignon we bought at Safeway on the Weber Q. I had already cleaned the grill grates on the Weber with the pumice bricks I mentioned in my last post.

Donna made baked potatoes and steamed fresh broccoli from the farmers’ market. Farm fresh broccoli is head and shoulders above the broccoli we typically find at the supermarkets. She also sauteed mushrooms and onions to go with the filets.

Our plans are coming together for us to make our way up to the northwest when we leave here at the end of the month. We plan to visit my oldest daughter’s family in western Washington – by the way, yesterday was Alana’s birthday. I must be really getting old – my daughter turned 40 years old!

There’s no sign of rain in the long-range forecast. The temperatures should reach the mid-80s through the weekend, then we’ll see daily highs in the 90s next week.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Category Archives: Cat

Two Concerts and a Parade

And Then There Was Stroganoff

Ponies and Snakes

Soldering Station

Another Jetpack Blow-up

Rocky Mountain Ripoff

Wild Visitors

Cedar Hats

Antenna Farm

Galloping Goose

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