I know I said my last post would probably be the end, but old habits die hard. So, I’ll add a quick update. We’ve really settled in to the Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort lifestyle. The summer months can be a bit tough in central Arizona, but we’re adapting. The pickleballers here play very early in the morning to beat the heat.
I don’t like playing pickleball before 6am. By the time I’ve loosened up and feel like I’m starting to play well, they’re quitting for the day. Donna found indoor pickleball a couple of miles away from us at the Red Mountain Multigenerational Center. It’s air-conditioned! We paid the $4 daily fee and played a few times to try it out. Then I found out that my Medicare Part G supplemental medical policy through Untied Health has a provision called Renew Active. The Multigenerational Center participates in this program, so I get a free membership and can go there anytime for free! This will be our summertime pickleball place – Donna and I have been a successful team winning most of our matches there.
Another way we’ve embraced the Viewpoint lifestyle is through another purchase we made. We’ve joined the majority of residents here by buying a golf car for convenient travel inside the park. They’re especially useful in the summer – it’s too hot to walk or bike in the afternoons and a regular car isn’t convenient. I’ve always called them golf carts, but now I’m told they are referred to as “golf cars,” I think this is because many are street legal low speed vehicles – most people here don’t use them for golf! We bought a Yamaha G19 electric golf car. It is a pre-owned unit that was always stored indoors by only one previous owner up in Fountain Hills.
It’s well-equipped with full lights including turn signals, brake lights and flashers. It has the optional horn. It also has a folding, two-piece windshield. It’s powered with a 48-volt electric motor powered by six 8-cell, deep cycle Trojan batteries. Batteries for these things are a big deal – they’re expensive to replace and are something to consider when shopping for a used golf car.
Yamaha G19 Golf Car
The first time I charged the batteries, I monitored the voltage. Typically these are charged with “smart chargers” that use a three-stage charging algorithm. They start with a high, constant current charge and build voltage as it charges – this is called the bulk charging stage. At a pre-determined voltage point, it switches to a constant voltage as current slowly drops as the internal resistance of the battery goes up – this is the absorption stage. Finally it reaches a point of nearly 100% charge and goes into the finish stage which is low current and lower voltage than the second stage.
I found the original charger that came with the golf car had a problem. It wouldn’t complete the second charging stage – it would set an error and quit charging with the batteries at about a 90% state of charge.
Original Yamaha charger – old technology
The original Yamaha charger is built with an old-school design with heavy components – it weighs about 35 pounds. I shopped online and decided to replace it with a 48-volt charger from a company based in Minnesota called Formcharge.
Formcharge 48-volt charger – newer technology
The Formcharge charger is built with more modern components and technology. It weighs about seven pounds and charges the battery bank perfectly. It further refines the three-stage charging with a seven-step algorithm. Trojan battery says a 100% charge of a 48-volt battery bank should show an open circuit voltage of 50.93 volts when resting at full charge. My volt-meter doesn’t read in hundredths of a volt, only tenths, but it bounces between 50.9 and 51 volts after charging with the Formcharge. Just right.
We don’t have room in the carport with our Nissan Frontier and MG Midget already in there, so we have to store the golf car out front. I bought a cover for it to avoid sun damage as well as water damage from rain.
Golf car under cover
Yesterday we beat the heat by going to a matinee at the AMC Superstition East movie theater. This facility features 12 small theaters which seat about 44 people each. The seats are roomy electric recliners – a very comfortable experience. We saw Top Gun Maverick. It was entertaining, but there were too many holes in the storyline for me.
Our granddaughter Gabi up in Washington injured her knee playing volleyball and had surgery to replace her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). This is a major surgery and the recovery time is long. On Monday, Donna will be celebrating Independence Day by flying up to Everett, Washington to keep Gabi company until the 15th. I’ll be here keeping Ozark the cat company.
I haven’t taken many dinner plate pictures lately, but there’s one I’d like to mention. A couple of weeks ago, Donna grilled salmon. We had about half of the filet left over. Donna often makes salmon patties, but she usually makes them from canned salmon. This time, she flaked the left over salmon and mixed it with red onion, celery, capers and few other ingredients before coating it with wheat panko bread crumbs. It was excellent, definitely superior to making it from canned salmon.
Salmon patties and broccoli
We’ve had triple-digit heat for several weeks now. The swamp cooler has been effective and it’s keeping the Arizona room about 25 degrees cooler than the outside ambient temperature. This morning, I replaced the batting in the cooler to increase its efficiency. The long-range forecast calls for daily highs between 100 and 109 degrees. We’re in the monsoon season here, so high winds, heavy thundershowers and flash flooding are possibilities at any time.
Last weekend, Donna started packing up stuff that we’ll need over the next four months for our summer vacation. We moved our departure date back by one day – we learned last year that it’s too much work to try and pack four months of necessary stuff in one day. Donna obtained a two-night parking pass and I parked the motorhome in front of our park model home.
Our park model is hidden behind the coach
The first thing I did was fill the fresh water tank and dose it with Chlor Brite. Chlor Brite is a product from Leslie Pool that’s basically granulated chlorine. Sodium diclor is the active ingredient – it’s 99% of the product. It’s a concentrated form of chlorine and a little bit goes a long way. When used in swimming pools, as little as three ounces will treat 10,000 gallons of water. Chlorine in drinking water is at a much lower level than swimming pools use.
I mixed a fairly strong solution, filled the fresh water tank and left it in overnight. After sitting in storage for eight months, I wanted to sanitize and remove any contaminants from the water tank. Early Tuesday morning, I dumped the tank and refilled it with filtered fresh water. We use a two-canister filtration system – the first stage is a five-micron sediment filter followed by a one-micron carbon block filter.
This is what 100 gallons of water quickly dumped in the street looks like
The dump valve on our fresh water tank is relatively large and empties the tank quickly. I dumped 100 gallons and it created a small stream in the road. During a storm in last summer’s monsoon season, our neighbors told us the street was completely flooded and ran all the way down through our carport to the shed! I can’t imagine how many gallons of water had to dump from the clouds to cause that.
Most people not from the area don’t realize Arizona has a monsoon season. In central Arizona, that season usually begins around mid-July and runs through August. Flash floods are common as these storms can drop a lot water very quickly.
Our neighbor across the street from us on the 1600 lane just bought the place. Donna told him we planned to place a barrier at the shed end of our carport to prevent flood water from entering our shed. His Arizona room addition is built on a slab at the back of his carport. Last year it flooded and suffered water damage – all the carpeting had to be ripped out. He was leaving the next day to go back north. He asked me if I could put up a water barrier for him – he gave me $100 for materials.
I found a product called Quick Dam Flood Bags. These are cloth tubes filled with a gel product that swells and seals the tubes, creating a useful flood barrier. They are stackable, so I bought enough to stack two high in front of our shed and his Arizona room. When they’re fully activated, they will create a barrier six to seven inches high.
Flood barrier for our neighbor’s Arizona room
I used a garden hose to activate his Quick Dams and make sure they’ll work. Job done!
I put Midget-San up on jack stands for summer storage. Then I removed the wheels – not only will this prevent the tires from flat-spotting, it’s also an anti-theft measure. It’s pretty hard to steal a car without wheels. I fastened the car cover over it for the summer.
Midget-San hibernating for the summer
Last Thursday was Cinco de Mayo – our anniversary day. We planned to celebrate our 16th anniversary with dinner at Baja Joe’s. Donna wasn’t feeling up to night out after her trip back from Vermont, so I ordered take-out from Baja Joe’s. Donna had her favorite shrimp dish with poblano cream sauce. I had the chef’s special fish filet with a seafood sauce containing pieces of shrimp and octopus. It was excellent – we’ve never had a bad meal at Baja Joe’s.
Saturday evening I manned the grill and cooked a pork tenderloin that Donna marinated in her mojo marinade. She served it with Cuban rice and a steamed vegetable medley. Another nicely balanced and nutritious meal.
Mojo marinated pork tenderloin
Donna had shrimp again on Sunday when she grilled it and served it over cilantro-avocado-lime sauce. Tasty!
Grilled shrimp, Mexican corn and grilled shishito peppers
We had a warm weekend with the thermometer reaching the upper 90s – it was 99 on Saturday! The temps held in the 80s as we packed on Monday and Tuesday. Packing for four months is more like moving from a furnished apartment to another furnished place. It’s not like we’re just heading out for a weekend.
We hit the road around 9:15am. Our route took us over Usery Pass to the Bush Highway past Saguaro Lake and on to the Beeline Highway (AZ87). We climbed to Payson which sits at an elevation of 5,000 feet above sea level. It was much cooler – in the low 70s there – and continued across the Sitgreaves National Forest to Heber on AZ260. This road runs through pine forest all the way to Heber – not what most people picture in Arizona.
At Heber, we turned northeast on AZ277, then AZ377 to Holbrook. The wind really picked up at Holbrook – it’s a steady 30mph wind with higher speed gusts. We’ve stopped for the night near the entrance of the Petrified Forest National Park. We stayed here last year – it’s a dry camping spot. I positoned the coach near the leeward side of a building to shelter us from some of the wind gusts. This is about the halfway point to tomorrow’s destination – Cortez, Colorado. We’ll spend a month there. Tomorrow we will go north through the National Park, then head east a short way on I-40, then north again through the Navajo Nation past Four Corners and on to Cortez – that’s the plan.
I got busy last Friday. As I mentioned in my last post, Gleeson Mechanical was scheduled to replace our air conditioner/electric heater with a Day and Night heat pump. Things started off slowly as they didn’t show until nearly 10am, then they had to return to the shop because they forgot some necessary item. They didn’t really get started until nearly 11am.
The two guys they sent out were efficient and the installation was completed by 2:30pm. They did a good job and hauled the old unit, including all of the underfloor ducting away. We have a new heat pump, new ducting, new return box and a new thermostat. It works really well. The only gripe I have is this – I told them to be aware of the property line. Our lot is narrow – all of the Viewpoint lots are narrow. They placed the unit carefully, but they ran the evaporator drain line over the property line, creating a trip hazard for my neighbor when they walk the path to their back deck.
New A/C and condensation drain line on our neighbor’s walkway
Our neighbors, Steve and Deena said they weren’t concerned about the drain line.
Meanwhile I received a delivery. A few weeks ago, I ordered a set of hand wound pickups for my Stratocaster guitar from Adam Asmus (Tone Hatch Pickups). His site showed a two-week wait for the pickups to be wound and he shipped them exactly two weeks later from Norfolk, Nebraska. However, it took the USPS a week to get them past Omaha, Nebraska.
I went to work on it right away. I removed the pickguard and old pickups, then installed the new ones and soldered it all together.
Pickguard with original machine wound pickupsTone Hatch pickups hand wound by Adam Asmus
I’m still tweaking the pickup heights, but these are very smooth sounding pickups with what I can only describe as a richer tone. I thought I would lose some output with these, but I don’t really notice a change in volume.
If you know me or have followed this blog, you know I like to build and play vacuum tube guitar amplifiers. The warm tone of vintage-type guitar amplifiers and the feel when you drive them hard can’t be duplicated in my opinion. Recently I started looking at vacuum tube stereo amplification.
Stereo amplification is much different than instrument amplification. In a guitar amplifier, a certain amount of distortion is desirable – you want the ability to increase the sound level of the guitar and create everything from a clean sound to an over-driven distorted, fat tone.
In stereo hifi amplification, you’re aiming for a transparent gain in sound levels while faithfully reproducing the original tones. I became intrigued by the idea of low-power, single-ended, class A amplification. I learned a lot from Steve Deckert’s website for his Decware amplifiers. I would love to have one of his Decware Zen Triode amps, but the cost of an entry-level Decware is about $1,000 and there’s a long waiting list to buy one – it could take eight months or more before I could have one built. He hand builds everything. This is only a 2.3 watt amplifier. If you wonder how 2.3 watts could drive a speaker, check out his website.
I did some looking around and found affordable alternatives made in China. These obviously don’t have the same build quality, but there are people who have documented the shortcomings and how to fix them and come up with a reasonably good sounding amplifier. After researching a bit, I decided to try an amp made in China by Douk Audio and sold in the US under the brand name, Nobsound.
There are two reasons I decided to try this amp – first, it’s affordable at $315 on Amazon. Then, most of the issues on this amp are documented and fixes are easy. It’s a hand-wired, point-to-point (PTP) chassis that’s easy to modify. I figured this would get me in the door of stereo hifi amplification without breaking the bank.
Nobsound 6P1 integrated stereo amp – photo from Amazon listing
They list this amp as a 6.8 watt amplifier, but I think that’s wishful thinking. It may be able to generate 6.8 watts of power, but the distortion level would be unbearable way before you got there. It’s really a 2 or 3 watt usable power amp.
Amazon delivered the amp on Friday and also delivered another product I needed for this amp. Douk Audio made a few questionable choices in components for this amp. Many of the early adopters of this amplifier complained of tubes burning out and if the rectifier tube burned out, they didn’t know how to diagnose and replace it – they just wrote it off as a cheap Chinese throwaway amplifier.
There are a couple of reasons this happened. First of all, Douk Audio sends these amps to North America for Nobsound with the same power transformer used in China. The thing is, China household voltage is nominally 110 volts. In North America 120 volts is the norm and it’s not unusual to see 122 or 124 volts at the wall outlet. The power transformer at 120 to 124 volts was supplying higher than specified voltages throughout the amplifier, killing vacuum tubes.
To counter this, I ordered an APC Line-R 1200-watt regulated power supply. It has three settings for the output voltages and can handle up to four devices connected to the output totaling 1200 watts. One of the settings is 110 volts. I measured an actual 108 volts with the 110 preset on mine. This should be fine. This unit costs about $60, so now I’m $375 into the project.
Power regulator
I connected the amplifier through the APC unit and connected my Celestion Bookshelf 8-ohm speakers. These aren’t the highest efficiency speakers and I hoped I would get enough volume out of them. Speaker efficiency is rated with a specification called sensitivity. A one watt, 1kHz signal is applied and the sound pressure level (SPL) is measured one meter from the center of the speaker. My speakers are rated at 89db – the minimum sensitivity recommended by Steve Deckert for low-watt use.
I was surprised! The amp sounded decent and had no problem driving the speakers. But, there was more to do. The vacuum tubes supplied with the amp were mostly good quality Russian military grade surplus tubes. This included the rectifier tube – I think Douk Audio figured they could address the rectifier failures by upgrading to the Russian tube instead of the cheap Chinese tube originally used and I hear is still in use in the China market. This would get them past the warranty period.
The power tubes are very cheap Chinese tubes. The Chinese tube is designated 6P1 and is a copy of the Russian 6P1P (6П1П in cyrillic). The tubes supplied with the amp are poorly made with a dirt-like contaminate visible inside the glass tube envelope. It’s like looking through a very dirty window. I tried scrubbing the glass with steel wool to see if it was on the outside – it’s the inside of the tube! I ordered two matched pairs of 6P1P – EV (6П1П-EB in cyrillic). Although this is a single-ended tetrode amp, it’s unusual in that two tubes are wired in parallel for the output of each channel – thus the need for matched pairs. This cost $60, so now I’m $435 into it.
Russian military grade 6P1P tube
I bought these tubes from an outfit called Riverstone in California. They are new old stock Russian military surplus made in 1985 and 1987 at the Svetlana factory in Saint Petersburg, Russia. This plant was built by RCA in 1937. The EV or EB suffix indicates an extended-life, ruggedized tube and these have the OTK quality control codes.
Cheap, contaminated Chinese tube on the left, NOS Svetlana tube on the right
No major tube manufacturer makes these tubes anymore, just a couple of small Chinese companies do. Luckily, there are large stockpiles of the NOS Russian high quality tubes still available. The change in output tubes made a huge difference in sound quality. The frequency range was extended, reproducing higher highs and lower lows, the difference was dramatic.
But wait, there’s more. Douk Audio has another design flaw. In the power supply, they used two 150uF electrolytic capacitors – one after the rectifier tube and one following the choke. For the rectifier tube, this is bad news. I’m guessing they did this to simplify inventory and cut costs by stocking a boatload of capacitors of the same value. The thing is that larger, higher capacitance filter capacitors to smooth ripple in DC current can be a good thing. But, there is a limit and too much isn’t necessarily better. The rectifier tube is a Russian 5U4C tube which is equivalent to the RCA 5Z4. RCA’s datasheet specifies no more than 40uF – the Brimar datasheet for this tube is more conservative and specifies 33uF maximum. Well, 150uF is too much and places undue stress on the rectifier tube.
So, I ordered a Vishay Beyschlag 22uF 450 volt electrolytic capacitor made in Austria from Digi-key to replace the 150uF Chinese one. I also ordered four high-quality Solen 0.22uF (220nF) 650 volt capacitors made in France to replace the no-name brand Chinese coupling capacitors. With tax and shipping, it was another $30 – making this project cost a total of $465.
Weird colorshift in this photo – this is the original circuit and the power transformer is clearly marked 110VCorrect color temperature – new capacitors installed – 22uF filter cap is the blue one on the center/right – coupling caps are the black ones
The wiring and solder connections inside the amp are tidy and impressive. I expected to reflow bad solder joints, but I didn’t find any bad ones. The cap replacements took me a lot longer than I anticipated. I told Donna this was because, in my usual fashion, I spend extra time looking for a part or tool I had in my hand a few minutes before. This can add 10-15 minutes to the job. Then I spend time looking for a small fastener or item I dropped and spend another five or 10 minutes on my hands and knees looking for it.
At the end of the day, I have a very delightful little single-ended class A vaccum tube amp for under $500. Can’t beat that! Last night I was listening to an acoustic guitar piece by Ronnie Earl and the sound reproduction was so clear, I realized I could hear his fingers sliding along the strings on chord changes! It was like he was sitting in front of me playing his guitar. Now that I know this amp is a keeper, I’ve ordered back-up vacuum tubes to have on hand, although these Russian military grade tubes should be long-life items.
Tubes and VU meters on the Nobsound glowing in the dark
On Sunday, our friend Sini flew in from San Diego. Donna picked her up at the airport and they had fun plans for the next few days. They made it into a girls retreat by renting a room at the Westgate Painted Mountain Resort and planned hiking and horseback riding activities. Last night, we all went to Baja Joe’s for a Mexican seafood dinner – Sini’s treat. Thanks, Sini!
Dinner at Baja Joe’s
Donna took Sini back to the airport this morning. I’ll add some photos of the hike and horseback ride in my next post as this is getting too long already.
Speaking of seafood – as I stated above, Friday was a busy day, but Donna topped it off with a dinner of walnut crusted tilapia with broccoli on the side.
Walnut crusted tilapia
The weather has remained pleasant with daily highs around 70 degrees and overnight lows in the upper 40s to 50 degrees. The mornings have had some high clouds that burn off before noon, but yesterday, we had some sprinkles of rain. It wasn’t much – I was on the pickleball court giving my coaching clinic and we managed to play through the short, light shower. The week ahead doesn’t show any significant changes.
*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
My last post mentioned Bill Hansen, Owner/Operator of Sun Limited Foam, Inc. who was here with a helper to install Cool Foam roof coating on our park model home. As the work progressed on Tuesday, it became apparent that they wouldn’t get it finished in one day as they’d hoped. They ended up knocking off a little early – I imagine it was pretty hot up on the roof as the cloudless sky produced a temperature in the upper 80s.
They were back at it Wednesday morning, but this time Bill brought two helpers. It was a lot of work but they had most of the foam layer done before taking a lunch break. They had a trailer with a generator and pump that pumped the foam chemical through a hose which they used to spray the product over the roof. The foam layer is about one-inch thick and has an insulation value of about R13 to R15.
The foam coating is a tan color and it alone would insulate and seal the roof, but it isn’t UV resistant and would break down from constant exposure to sunlight. So, once they had the foam covering everything, they switched to a pure white elastomer product to spray over the foam coating. This elastomer adds some insulation value, but its real purpose is to protect the foam below and reflect sunlight from the surface. This helps keep the place cooler on sunny days – of which we have over 300 per year here in Arizona.
Bill spraying elastomer product over the foam coatingLooks like snow on the roof – when he’s finished it’ll all be white
The Cool Foam coating covers everything except for the car port roof. It extends a few feet over the car port roof to seal the edges where the car port corrugated metal roof joins the house.
We’ve kept busy with different activities here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. I play pickleball most mornings while Donna plays tennis twice a week and pickleball two or more days per week. I’ve also started 90-minute coaching sessions on Tuesday afternoons. Donna is also learning to play golf – she had her first lesson with her friend Ginny over the weekend.
Most days, Donna provides home and companion care services for a couple of hours per day. People here at Viewpoint that need help with cleaning or moving or pet sitting and various other tasks can hire Donna and she’s been in fairly high demand.
We both also practice music most days – Donna with her clarinet and me hacking away on the guitar. Donna finds time most days to come up with great dinner dishes as well. Last Tuesday, she made country style ribs in the slow cooker and served it with a baked potato and asparagus.
Slow cooked country style ribs
A couple of days later, she baked fish in parchment paper and served it with Southern fried cabbage with bacon.
Fiah baked in parchment paper and Southern fried cabbage
Last night, she made balsamic steak tips with mushrooms and served it with spaghetti squash with bacon and parmesan cheese. Delicious!
Pan fried sirloin strips with mushrooms
I have to rant about something. My dental insurance premium is supposed to be automatically paid through my Healthcare Reimbusement Account (HRA), but something went wrong there and Cigna billed my credit card. No big deal, right? Just submit the expense to the HRA and get reimbursed. But here’s the issue.
They sent me an e-mail stating that my credit card was billed. The e-mail had a link to the MyCigna website so I could view the details. I clicked on the link. No payment details there – no payment history (I searched all over the site). The e-mail also had a phone number for Cigna billing and enrollment services if I had any questions. I called this number and went through about a dozen menus and questions before I spoke with a person.
They told me to click on Payment History on the website. I asked them to tell me where I would find this option – there’s no search function on this lame site and no payment history option that I could find. The person told me they don’t have access to the site, so he couldn’t tell me how to find the option. Some helpdesk, right? I asked him if he could look up my account and e-mail me a payment receipt so I could submit it for reimbursement. He said he could only mail a paper copy or fax it to me – like we all have fax machines at home in 2021. Maybe 15 years ago that would’ve worked. So that’s the service from Cigna – a link to website that doesn’t show any payment detail and a phone number to a helpdesk that isn’t very helpful. I’ll have to wait 10 to 14 business days for a paper receipt in the mail!
The weather in a word has been delightful. We were pushing 90 for a few days, but it’s mostly been mid to upper 80s with comfortable evenings and overnight lows in the mid 50s. The morning temperatures are very comfortable. The swamp cooler easily handles the afternoon temperature and we haven’t had to run the air conditioning. Today’s forecast calls for a high of 85 and next week is supposed to be 5 to 10 degrees cooler.
*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!
I got through last Wednesday’s pickleball coaching session without too much pain. I was very careful of how I demonstrated certain drills and techniques, then mostly stood to the side and observed the students. It was a 90-minute lesson and I think it went well.
Later in the afternoon, DHL delivered again. Yeah, I bought another Japanese kitchen knife. I know, how many do you need, right? Well, it’s like cowboy boots – just one more is always the answer. I wanted to have a longer slicing knife to use for brisket and tri-tip off the smoker. A Japanese style called a sujihiki was what I wanted. Sujihikis are usually long and only about one and a half inches (38mm) tall at the heel of the blade. They are ideal for cutting boneless meat into thin strips.
I had sent an e-mail with questions to Japanese Chef Knives and got a prompt rely from the boss there, Koki Iwahara. I placed the order for a JCK Natures Blue Moon kuritsuki/sujihiki. These knives are hand made in Sanjo, Niigata Prefecture, Japan. Japan had a number of well-known blademaking cities, each with its own take on knife making. Sanjo historically was a place where blacksmiths made mostly farming tools. That changed and today there are reportedly around 100 knife factories in Niigata Prefecture. Factory in this sense doesn’t mean what we might think of a factory.
Many knife makers operate out of a small dwelling – maybe the size of an American two-car garage with one to three workers. This is typical in Sanjo where all of the knife making process, other than the handle, takes place under one roof. In other areas, different steps in the process are contracted out to various specialists.
Typical Sanjo knife factory – photo from Tokyoknives.com blog
Once again, Koki and DHL came through. The knife left Tokyo on Monday and I had it Wednesday afternoon. It’s a 9.5-inch (240mm) sujihiki with a “K” type reverse tanto tip.
JCK kuritsuki/sujihiki
I ordered a saya (wood sheath) to go with it. I oiled the chestnut handle and magnolia saya with camellia oil and it darkened nicely.
After oiling
The extremely sharp blade is made from Hitachi Aogami #2 – also called blue steel #2 – a high carbon steel that’s not corrosion resistant. The blade is san-mai, that is, it’s three layers. The core of Aogami #2 is clad with soft stainless steel on each side, like a sandwich. This gives the advantage of the hard blue steel edge and the toughness of the soft cladding – otherwise the blade would be too brittle and fragile.
Wednesday evening, Donna cooked seared ahi (yellowfin tuna) and I put the sujihiki to test. It sliced the ahi cleanly with one pulling stroke into thin serving slices. She served it over Japanese fried rice with grilled bok choy. Delicious!
Seared ahi over fried rice with bok choy and a dab of wasabi
On Friday, Donna made an announcement on social media that she’s been considering for awhile. She officially announced her retirement. No more articles, newsletters or books to write, no more interviews with magazines and no more blogging. She’s selling her Internet domain name and completely leaving the organizing business. Her days are already full with tennis, pickleball, bicycling and sometimes just relaxing with a book.
I had another delivery and set about doing some regular RV maintenance work on Friday. I had ordered replacement filter cartridges from the RV Water Filter Store for our dual canister water filtration system. I replace the cartridges on a regular schedule – the sediment filter gets changed every three months while the carbon block filter gets changed every six months.
The water here in the desert is very hard with lots of mineral content. Additionally, in December, they replaced the water meters in the park, which undoubtedly released sediment into the pipes.
Old sediment filter on the right
The 5-micron sediment filter really showed a lot of trapped debris and rust. I like the 5-micron element as it it’s fine enough, but still allows good flow. A one-micron filter would trap smaller particles, but it also impedes flow.
The weather has been delightful – as forecast, the highs have been in the mid to upper 70s with overnight lows around 50. We’ll have a few more nice days ahead, but clouds and a chance of rain are in the forecast by the end of the week.
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.
Large old 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.
Coyote at our site
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.
Simple dinner from the grill
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 near our site
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.
Fort Deseret placard155-year-old adobe wallClose up detail of the adobeThe state park
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.
*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!
It was time to take care of business on Monday. We’ve been here at the Coeur d’Alene Elk’s Lodge for 10 days and I thought I should dump our holding tanks. We’ve been careful about the amount of gray water going down the drains – taking navy showers and whatnot. The thing is, our toilet started burping.
When RVers mention a toilet burp, it probably needs some explanation. An RV toilet doesn’t operate on the same principle as a regular household toilet. RV toilets are strictly gravity flush, usually with a ball valve at the bottom of the bowl that seals the bowl when closed and simply rotates to open the drain into the black tank.
When water is suddenly dumped into the black tank, it displaces air space (headspace) in the tank. This displaced air has to go somewhere, so there’s a vent pipe that extends above the roof of the RV. When the RV is being built, a worker cuts the vent pipe to length, then passes it through the roof and down into the tank. This can cause issues – if the length isn’t measured carefully and/or if the pipe isn’t carefully inserted so a minimum amount is pushed down into the tank, the vent may not work properly.
Once the liquid level in the tank reaches the vent pipe opening, air can no longer escape easily through the vent. Now, when you flush the toilet, as the water flows through the opening, displaced air comes up through the bottom of the bowl in a bubble – thus the toilet burp. RVers usually view the toilet burp as a sign the black tank is full or nearly full. The electronic tank sensors are notoriously unreliable, but a toilet burp always means the liquid level has reached the vent pipe. The quandary is, does the vent pipe extend one-inch into the tank, meaning the tank is quite full or does the vent pipe extend three inches into the tank, meaning there is a lot of headspace left?
I think our vent pipe extends deeper into the tank than designed – I’ve had a burping toilet for two days before without an issue. But, I didn’t want to push it. So, Monday morning we packed up and secured everything, disconnected and headed to the city dump station a few miles away from here by the fairgrounds. The city dump station is free, although a donation box is there. I always leave a small donation. The facility is clean and well-maintained.
I found our gray water tank was only about half full after 10 days. It’s a 100-gallon tank, so that means we only generated about 50 gallons of gray water in 10 days. I always time the gray water when I dump. When I first open the dump valve, a solid column of gray water comes through the clear elbow on the drain fitting. The tank vent allows this solid column of water. When the liquid level drops to the tank drain opening, the solid column of water is disrupted by an ever increasing air gap in the drain elbow. I watch how long it takes for the solid column to change – the point where the tank level has reached the drain opening. I know from past experience that a full tank – when the gray water is backing up into the shower pan – takes about 3 minutes 45 seconds for the gray water level to drop to the drain opening level. This time, it took less than two minutes.
After we returned to the Elk’s Lodge and set up, we headed out to the laundromat. Without a sewer connection, we haven’t used our Splendide washer/dryer. The clothes washer is the biggest contributor to gray water. So, as I said in the beginning, Monday was a “taking care of business” day.
While we were taking care of business, our friend Gary Stemple was flying from San Diego to Couer d’Alene. Gary and I have been friends since our schoolboy days – I’ve known him for about 50 years! Gary’s mother was originally from this area and his cousin Kim lives about 20 miles south of Coeur d’Alene on the west side of the lake.
Tuesday morning we made plans to meet Gary at the dock east of the Couer d’Alene Resort. Donna made a pitcher of rum punch to go. Gary brought Kim’s boat – a Centurion Enzo SV240 – up to pick us up. The plan was for Donna and I to pick up burgers at Hudson’s – a local business that’s famous for their hamburgers. Hudson’s has been selling burgers in Coeur d’Alene since 1907 – five generations of family-owned business.
Hudson’s is right across the street from the resort on Sherman Avenue. Gary tried to call in the order, but said no one was answering the phone. He figured maybe they didn’t open until 11 am. Donna and I walked over there after parking on the east side of the resort. We found Hudson’s was closed and a handwritten sign on the door said they were closed because someone tried to burn the place down! This morning, I found an article stating that it was being treated as a crime scene after someone broke in early Tuesday morning, tried to break into an ATM machine, then set fire to the back of the restaurant.
We cruised down to Kim’s place – it’s about halfway down the length of Lake Coeur d’Alene.
Approaching Kim’s house – I inadvertently cut off half of her house on the left of the photo
We made a brief stop at her house – Kim was out on a jet ski. I made an interesting find there and got the story from her neighbor and friend Kenlee (sp?). My recollection of the whole story is a bit fuzzy – maybe the rum punch without a burger for lunch had something to do with that.
In 1956, Kim’s grandfather bought a car for her grandmother – it was a 1956 or ’57 Nash Metropolitan. When Kim was in high school and got her drivers’ license, it became her car. When Kim went off to college, a Nash Metropolitan wasn’t cool enough. So, she sold it and bought a Camaro. A couple of decades later, she tracked the car down through a couple of owners and bought it back. But it wasn’t in very good shape. She left it parked for the next 30 years or so, then recently had it brought back to good running order and it’s back on the road!
Kim’s Nash Metropolitan
Gary, Donna and I took Kim’s boat for a ride to the south end of Lake Coeur d’Alene to the St. Joe River. The south end of the lake is interesting. There are numerous sand bars and you have to be vigilant and stay in the channels. Most of them are well-marked with green square marker posts and red triangular marker posts on the edges of the channels. Navigate between the red and green markers and you should be okay. We crossed under the Chatcolet Bridge Lookout where Lake Coeur d’Alene becomes split into Chatcolet Lake and Round Lake. The Chatcolet bridge is part of the Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes – a multi-use trail. The bridge was originally a railroad bridge.
Chatcolet Bridge Lookout
What’s really unusual is that the St. Joe River flows between the two lakes as sand bars separate it from the lakes.
Sign at the Chatcolet bridgeSt. Joe River separated from Round Lake
We cruised upriver through mostly uninhabited marshlands and woods. I expected to see a moose at every turn. We only saw a few other boaters and mostly had the river to ourselves until we neared the town of St. Maries.
Donna lounging in front of Captain Gary
As we came closer to town, houses and boat docks lined the river. Mostly it was “No wake zone” territory. We’d been out for a couple of hours at that point.
Homes on the St Joe River
We turned around and headed back.
Sign at Chatcolet Bridge heading back to Lake Coeur d’Alene
Every reference I’ve seen calls the lake “Lake Coeur d’Alene.” But the sign at the Chatcolet bridge says “Welcome to Coeur d’Alene Lake.” We cruised north on the lake to Rockford Bay where we fueled up at Black Rock Marina, then found Kim and Kenlee at Shooter’s for an adult beverage and late lunch/early dinner.
Heading back up the lake
The Centurion Enzo is a wake board boat powered by a Mercruiser Black Scorpion 330 horsepower engine – which is derived from a GM 5.7 liter V-8. Cruising at 5,000 rpm, it’s a thirsty powerplant. I think we were burning more than 5 gallons/hour.
Kim and Kenlee rode back up to the resort with us where they dropped us off and the day’s big adventure was over.
The temperature reached a high of 85 degrees, but it felt very comfortable out on the water. The forecast calls for the mid-80s to continue until the temperature drops into the low 70s on Sunday. If that holds true, it’ll be just right for prepping the trailer on Sunday for Monday’s departure. We still don’t know where we’ll end up next.
*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!
Donna and I met up with Alana, Kevin and our granddaughter Lainey Monday afternoon at North Sound Brewing Company for a couple of cold ones. It’s a little strange getting used to the idea of having an adult beverage with my granddaughter! The brewery is only about a mile from the Mount Vernon RV Park on Memorial Highway. They had plenty of outdoor seating.
Tuesday I had a project to take care of. A few weeks ago, I noticed some strange wear patterns on the cargo trailer tires. One of them looked bad. On Monday, I walked down the street from the RV park to the Les Schwab Tire Center. I ordered four new ST type trailer tires. They said they would have the tires first thing Tuesday morning.
It was a bit of a chore putting the trailer up on jack stands. I used my floor jack and placed two jack stands per side and pulled all of the wheels off. Alana and the grandkids, Lainey and Gabi, came by to go for a walk with Donna. I used Alana’s VW Atlas to transport the wheels to Les Schwab. They had the new tires and got on the job right away.
This was the worst tire – note the shoulder wear and wear bars in the outer treadsThis tire had much less wear, but still had excessive wear on the shoulders
Examining the four old tires, I saw they wore very inconsistently. These were Chinese made Rainier brand tires. I always kept the tires inflated to 50psi – the maximum load pressure indicated on the sidewall. The excessive shoulder wear looked like they had been underinflated, but I know that wasn’t the case. The tire guy at Les Schwab asked about inflation of these tires and I told him I always maintained them at 50psi.
The new tires were mounted quickly and while I paid the bill, the tire guy loaded the wheels in the Atlas. Before I left, I asked him what the tire pressure was – he said he set them to 50psi, just like the old ones. Here’s the thing – the old tires had a 6-ply rating – an antiquated rating system. They were more accurately called load range “C” tires. Load range “C” tires are rated for maximum load at 50psi.
The new tires I bought were 8-ply rated or load range “D”. These tires were rated for higher maximum loads. Load range “D” trailer tires are rated for maximum load at 65psi. These tires can carry 300 lbs more load per tire than the old tires, but they have to be inflated to 65psi. I let it go – I figured I could deal with it later before we hit the road.
Before I re-installed the wheels, I checked the wheel bearings for excessive play. I thought maybe if there was too much clearance in the wheel bearings, the hubs might walk back and forth making a slight wobble in the tire, causing the shoulder wear. The wheel bearings were fine. I think the tires were just cheaply manufactured and had inconsistent wear. I had put about 28,000 miles on the old tires.
Later, Donna and I went to Alana’s place. Kevin was working – he’s an paramedic with the fire department and works 24-hour shifts. He does two 24-hour stints with 12 hours off in between, then has five days off. I cooked a salmon filet on Kevin’s Traeger and Alana added boneless chicken thighs. She also made home fried potatoes, asparagus and broccoli.
We visited on the back patio over dinner and had a black-tail doe come through the yard. Lainey had to go back to Pullman where she’s a student at Washington State University. She had to move out of her apartment by Thursday night. So, Alana, Kevin and the rest of the family went to Pullman on Wednesday to help her move. They’ll be back Saturday afternoon. It was getting a bit late by the time we left and we didn’t get back to Mount Vernon until 9pm.
I’ve been playing with my ham radio and I’m getting more comfortable with the program settings and being on the air. I found a repeater located on Mount Seymour which is north of Vancouver, British Columbia. This powerful repeater reaches well into Washington as well as covering western British Columbia and Vancouver Island, Canada.
Without getting too technical, I need to explain something about repeaters. A repeater is a remote station that receives a radio signal and re-transmits that signal at a higher output power. The thing is, it has to receive the signal on a certain frequency, then re-transmit on a different frequency. If it tried to receive and transmit on the same frequency simultaneously, garbled noise would result. The difference between the receive or input frequency and the transmit or output frequency of the reperater is called the offset.
Well, when I found the signal being transmitted by the Canadian repeater, it was transmitting a net or network of users called the Rainbow Country Net. They log in with the net operator at 9am every morning for group discussion. I listened for an hour or so, then the net operator called for anyone that hadn’t checked in to give their call sign, location and name. I keyed the microphone and called in. I was welcomed and told I had a clear, strong signal.
Later, I realized that I had just stumbled upon what I thought was the repeater transmission while I was scanning frequencies. I didn’t have the repeater information, so I hadn’t programmed an offset frequency to transmit into the repeater, I thought I was just monitoring the output. So, what happened was although I thought I was listening to the net from the repeater, I was really capturing the signal going into the repeater and when I transmitted, my signal didn’t go through the repeater – it went directly from station-to-station.
Later, I looked up the repeater online and found the offset. This morning, I joined the net again and told them of my error the day before. The net operator told me he was unaware that I transmitted a simplex station-to-station the day before, my signal was that good.
I had to come up with a way to store the new radio gear. Storage when you’re a full-time RVer is always an issue. I ordered a couple of foam-lined hard shell cases intended for camera equipment to use with my ham radio gear.
I added the Yaesu radio sticker to the large caseYaesu FT-991a radio packed in the case
The protective cases will make it much easier to store the gear. My radio is made by a Japanese company called Yaesu. I’ve been in a quandry over how I should pronounce the name. Most native English speakers say “YAY-sue.” But that’s not how a native Japanese speaker would pronounce it. They say it with more of a three syllable sound although the second and third syllable are often slurred together. They say “YAH-eh-zu.” YAY-sue sounds kind of country bumpkin to me. Maybe I’ll say a hybrid YAY-eh-zu.
My ham shack-in-a-box on the picnic table in our site
The weather forecast around here seems to change on a daily basis. We were expecting some cooler temperatures, but yesterday we hit 81 degrees and now they’re calling for 85 today. For what it’s worth, the forecast says we’ll see around 80 degrees each day through the weekend.
*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!
I closed my last post on Friday saying that Mike Hall invited me to join him at the Gooding and Company Auto Auction. Mike had VIP passes that gained us free entry and the run of the place at Scottsdale Fashion Square. The first part of this post is car picture heavy. If you have no interest in rare, expensive automobiles, you may want to skip down past the photos.
Mike picked me up here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort and we arrived in Scottsdale around 4pm. We were waved right into the show area after showing our VIP wristbands. Right at the entrance, a beautiful yellow 1967 Ferrari 300 GTS was on display. I’ll let the photos and captions walk us through some of the cars up for sale.
1967 Ferrari 330 GTS1967 Ferrari 400 Superfast1973 Ferrari 246 Dino1983 Ferrari 512 Berlinetta BoxerA modern Ferrari – a model year 2020 488 Pista1953 Jaguar XK120 Roadster1955 Jaguar XK140 Drophead CoupeMy favorite of the show and the first time I’ve ever seen one other than photos – 1956 Jaguar XK140 Aerodyne1964 Jaguar E-Type 3.8 Series I Roadster – please excuse the weird lens flare in the photo1960 Austin Healey 3000 Mk I BN7 1948 Tucker1941 Packard Custom Super Eight 180 Victoria1926 Duesenberg Model A Opera Coupe1936 Duesenberg Model JN Tourster1932 Hispano – Suiza J12 Dual Cowl PhaetonNot your average Porsche – a model year 2004 Carrera GT – Fewer than 1,400 of these V10 powered Porsches were made and only 644 were imported to the US
After we checked out the cars, we decided not to fight the rush hour traffic on the Loop 101 and 202. We stopped at Fox’s Cigar Lounge in Old Town Scottsdale instead. This is a nice cigar bar with a good assortment of reasonably priced cigars and a well-stocked bar with local beer on tap and a huge selection of liquor. We each picked out a cigar and sat at the bar puffing and sipping a beer for the next hour or so. Altogether a very enjoyable evening.
Saturday morning I played in the 3.0+ pickleball tournament. I didn’t have my best day on the courts. We’re having a bit of a problem here with people self-rating and playing in skill level groups they have no business playing in. Most of us tend to rate ourselves high, but we need to be realistic and the organizers need to enforce the ratings through round-robin results. Playing in a tournament where you draw a different partner in each round is frustrating when you end up partnered with someone that isn’t at the skill level being played. I’m not trying to make excuses for not making the finals, but I was a bit frustrated in a few of the rounds.
On Sunday night, Donna performed with the Viewpoint Concert Band in their monthly performance – Donna’s first concert performance in 45 years! I was amazed at how good the band sounded – they only rehearsed together four or five times. Everyone worked on their parts obviously and Donna had a great time and performed well. There were at least two hundred people in the audience. They played 14 pieces in the hour and a half performance. Now they’ve turned all of that music in and will start learning a new repertoire tomorrow for February’s performance. Wow! Donna is really enjoying her clarinet and started lessons with a new teacher just a couple of miles away from here on Monday.
Poor lighting for photographs – Donna is left of center between the conductor and American flag
I played in the 3.5+ round robin pickleball group Monday morning. We split into two random groups. I had a good draw and scored a perfect total of 66 points by winning all six of my games. It was an encouraging day on the court.
Shortly after we arrived here, I saw a guy doing some paintwork on an upscale American Coach in the row behind us. Before I could talk to the guy, he was gone. Later, I found another guy I mentioned in my last post to do some paintwork for us. On Friday, I saw the first guy again. This time he was re-caulking the seams and accessories on the roof of the American Coach.
I introduced myself and found out he was Scott Hancock. Scott used to be the Service Manager at an RV shop here in Mesa. He relocated here from Elkhart, Indiana where he built and finished RVs at the Forest River factory. Resealing our roof was on my to-do list. I figured it would be a day’s work to remove the old sealant and lay down new urethane sealant. You don’t want to use silicone sealant on an RV roof. Flexible, self-leveling urethane is the way to go.
I asked Scott what he would charge to reseal our roof. He told me if I would buy the sealant he wanted to use, he would do the work for $75. Deal! I had to order the sealant – he likes Sika brand SIkaflex Pro Select polyurethane self-leveling sealant. I found it on Amazon and had six tubes delivered by Sunday.
Scott resealed the roof on Monday. It was good thing. The sealant had ample to time to cure before rain moved in early this morning. I looked at the paintwork Scott did on the American Coach. I asked him what he would charge to do the paintwork I originally planned to have done by Perfect Touchup & Recondition. Scott quoted me a price that was $500 lower. I cancelled the job with Perfect Touchup & Recondition and scheduled the work with Scott.
After a weekend of temperatures reaching the low to mid 70s, we have a wet and dreary day today. The thermometer isn’t likely to exceed 60 degrees. We should dry out tomorrow and the daily highs will be back in the 70s in a few days. Nice!
*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!
The last week was a bit of a whirlwind. We were able to close escrow on the sale of Ken’s house without having to drive up I-15 to Riverside County – thanks to the concept of electronic signatures and a service called DocuSign.
Once the funds were transferred into the trust account, I made a distribution to beneficiaries. This involved running around to three different banks to distribute the funds with the least cost. I only had to wire money to one account. Wire transfers cost $35 per transaction. By using free cashier check service, I was able to directly deposit into two other bank accounts that have branches here in San Diego.
I’ve held back funds in the trust account to cover any bills that may still be outstanding – things like ambulance transfer costs, medical, and personal income taxes for 2019 on behalf of Ken. Overall, my duties as Successor Trustee progressed quickly and relatively smoothly. I’ll be glad when we can wrap things up and close the trust in four or five months.
Wednesday morning, Donna had her alarm set for 5am. I could hear rain drops on the roof of our coach once I was awake. She was planning to call Lyft for a ride to the airport, but I drove her there and dropped her off around 5:45 am for a flight to Albany, New York. She was heading to Bennington, Vermont for a surprise visit with her parents. The occasion was her mom’s 80th birthday. I would be on my own for the next five days.
On the way back from the airport, I hit the drive-through at Jack-in-the-Box. I don’t think I’ve been to a Jack-in-the-Box in thirty years or more. I went for a breakfast burrito and was surprised by the size of the thing. It had egg, sausage, potato and cheese and was over 1,000 calories! Yikes, I can’t make a habit of eating like that!
I played pickleball at Ocean Beach Recreation Center (OBRC) and hopefully worked some of those calories off. It continued to rain throughout the day and all day Thursday as well. That left me shut in for a couple of days. I had an idea for a Christmas present for Donna, but I had to do some research. The rainy days gave me plenty of time to search the Internet.
Donna has been really diligent at practicing the clarinet. She played the instrument in her junior high school days and picked it back up in July. I’m amazed at how well she can play it. Clarinet is not an easy instrument to play. There are tone holes, keys and levers that require an number of different finger positions to create notes in different registers. I think I read there are 24 tone holes altogether on the instrument.
Donna’s clarinet is a used student model she picked up when we were visiting my daughter, Alana, in Arlington, Washington. Donna has an ambitious goal of playing in the Viewpoint Golf & RV Resort band when we get to Mesa, Arizona next month. I have no doubt about her reaching this goal.
I didn’t know anything about clarinets. I know from my experience with guitars that the step from a beginner instrument to a more advanced, higher quality piece can be a vast improvement. For example, going from a $400 electric guitar made in Asia to a $2,000 Gibson is a huge leap in playability, tone and overall quality. I decided to research clarinets and see if there is a similar step in quality of the instrument.
Over a few days I learned more about clarinets than I ever thought I would. Indeed, the step from a student model to an intermediate level clarinet is a big difference. Once you reach this level though, the next level of instruments follow the law of diminishing returns. For example, going from a $400-$500 student model to an intermediate model of around $2,000 makes a very noticeable difference in the quality and playability of the instrument. But, unless you’re a professional musician, going from a $2,000 clarinet to a $4,000 clarinet doesn’t make that same jump in quality. It’s more subtle and probably only a pro would be able to pick out the nuances that make a clarinet cost $4,000 or more.
The thing is, buying a musical instrument can be a very personal decision. What speaks to one person may not be the same for someone else. So picking out a clarinet to buy for Donna was a bit of a conundrum. I finally decided on a few models and concentrated my research on those. I read opinions on musician forums and reviews. I watched countless YouTube videos. Then I bit the bullet and placed an order. The deal is this though, that meant I had to reveal her Christmas present early as returning a musical instrument is a time-sensitive issue. You can only test drive it for a week or so or most shops won’t accept a return unless there is some kind of defect.
The rain moved east by Friday and we had a sunny day. I took advantage of the weather and got Midget-San out of the trailer for some exercise. I drove to OBRC for more pickleball. I loaded it back in the trailer when I came home. It was a good thing I did as rain started again in the evening and rained off and on all weekend.
I picked Donna up at the airport Sunday around 5:30pm. After we settled in back at Mission Bay RV Resort, I told her about the clarinet. I told her it would most likely arrive on Monday and she should try it out. If she didn’t like for any reason, we could exchange it and my feelings wouldn’t be hurt. It seems like I always have reason for an early Christmas present reveal over the past few years.
The clarinet, which is a Leblanc Serenade model made of African blackwood (Granadilla) with silver plated keys came on Monday afternoon. It’s a real beauty.
Leblanc Serenade in carrying case
One of the cool things about a clarinet is the compact storage – just right for someone living in 300 square feet. The instrument breaks down into five component parts and is easily stored or transported. There’s a break-in process recommended for wood clarinets and Donna’s already on it. It should be fully broken in and ready for long session use by the time we get to Viewpoint in Mesa, Arizona.
Another item I received was an air filter element for our coach. I prefer the Fleetguard brand of filters for the Cummin ISL diesel engine and that’s what I got. Air filters are a tricky item to set a preventive maintenance schedule for. Much depends on the conditions it is operated in. High exposure to dusty conditions mean more frequent replacement while more “normal” driving conditions can extend the life of an air filter. Changing it too often is not recommended as the air filter element gains efficiency once it traps a certain level of particulates. Most diesel-powered coaches have an air restriction gauge for the intake that would reveal an air filter that’s becoming clogged.
Some people think these gauges are worthless while most air filter manufacturers will tell you they’re the best way to know the air filter condition – they say it’s impossible to tell the actual condition of an air filter just by visual inspection. Judging by the restriction indicated on our gauge we didn’t need an air filter element yet. But, there’s also a time factor to consider. Over time, the element (paper in our case) can weaken and eventually break down. It only takes about a tablespoon of dust to completely ruin an expensive diesel engine. I’ve also heard of a case where a paper element disintegrated and pieces entered the combustion chamber with catastrophic results.
So, I’ve arbitrarily set a two-year air filter change interval as long as the restriction gauge shows the air filter is still good. In other words, if the restriction gauge showed excessive restriction before two years, I would change it sooner. But if the restriction gauge remains in the acceptable range, two years is the maximum time. Our filter was last changed in October 2017. We haven’t run the engine since we arrived here in late September, so I’m at the two-year interval although this is December.
Air filter restriction gauge – still in the green
It’s importatnt to keep things clean when you change the air filter element – it’s doesn’t take much dirt to ruin an engine.
Old filter on the left, new on the right – it’s hard to judge condition by visual examination
The Fleetguard filter comes with a new rubber sealing washer for the wing nut securing the filter. I always renew this washer to avoid having a leaky seal that could allow dirt to enter. It’s also important to tighten the wing nut sufficiently to compress the seal on the backside of the air filter element sealing it to the housing.
New seal on wing nut
The last step was to note the date of the filter replacement – I use a strip of duct tape and a marker.
Date of change recorded
Today it’s partly cloudy but there’s no rain in the forecast. The rest of the week should be dry, but it’s cooler with the temperature only reaching the low to mid 60s. It’s December, so I can’t complain about cooler temperatures!
*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!
