(This is where Henry Ford was evicted from the train as a teenager for catching the baggage car on fire with his experiments. Ford’s friend Edison had the depot packed up and rebuilt in Ford’s own Greenfield Village without telling him about it. Anyway it’s a long story, go check it out.)

I was having a detailed telegraph discussion with a lady who portrayed a conductor on the train. She had a telegraph key and sounder set up as a demonstration. Of course I stepped up and bragged that I was a telegrapher on the Northern Pacific Railroad in the 1960’s and offered to demonstrate. She handed me a telegraph form that had the code printed in a table on the back. Only the code was the international code, not the railroad code. I spent the next quarter hour explaining and demonstrating the difference. For example an “O” in International Morse is dah-dah-dah and in American Morse it is dit – dit. Not di-dit like an “I” but dit – dit like an “O”. Also “Y” becomes di-dit – di-dit instead of dah-di-dah-dah.
As a reward for all my effort the lady conductor offered us a ride on her train. So for my kibitzers I have a steam locomotive video on the website this time around. (Note: I have not been able to insert it here, so jump to my Facebook page to see the video clip.)

We did have some excitement the first day. When we returned to the coach for lunch there was a big puddle of antifreeze under the front of the coach. The heater core had sprung a leak. To get by I connected the inlet and outlet hoses together. We don’t really need the heater this time of year. Temperatures run in the 80’s by day and 70’s by night.
It is just after nine here and the big red meatball of a sun is just setting at the Isabella County Fairgrounds in Mount Pleasant Michigan. We have the whole campground to ourselves. Good Night and pleasant dreams from Gary and Judy in Michigan.

Last night we were camped alongside the Kalamath River just a couple miles up from the Pacific Ocean. After supper I was practicing the guitar in the bedroom when the neighbors knocked and invited us to join them around their campfire. A young man, Trent, was playing a flat top guitar also. Our styles were not perfectly matched, but we still made some good harmony together. It wasn’t long before the camp manager came up with his flat top guitar and a harmonica to join the group. We taught each other licks and took turns leading songs. Trent had an interesting finger picking style and the manager was into down and dirty blues. I would lead my segments with country-western, folk or bluegrass. We had an eclectic jam. Before we knew it, the time was 9:30 and the wood pile was gone.

Today we were threading our way among the little towns along highway 101 on the North California and Oregon coast. Judy kept hearing a “banging” noise on her side of the coach. We pulled off the highway in Coos Bay and I discovered the hatch that accesses the leveling and slider hydraulic system was swinging open. The key lock toggle had come off and was gone. There was no way to lock it closed. With some trepidation I taped the hatch closed with duct tape. That lasted for ten miles and I had to stop and do it again. After getting parked for the night at the Elks campground in Florence I created a new toggle with the hack saw and a file. I have included a couple photos to document the event. Yes, the duct tape made a gooey mess of the paint around the hatch, but it cleaned up nicely with a little isopropyl alcohol.

Hatch Propped Up With My Hiking Stick

Pointing Out the Hatch Lock and the New Toggle

Notice the beautiful Rhodies in our campground. The Elks have created a rather stunning park here in Florence, Oregon. It is off the highway in a grove of trees and it is quiet. That in itself is unusual. Judy and I have determined in our travels that there are certain locations that are most suitable for RV parks. They need to have a freeway, a railroad or an industrial complex on one side of the camp; Even better if there are two of the three features available. Advertising for selling RV’s on the other hand show the coach parked on the beach just above the surf line in a secluded lagoon. The bait and the switch, right?

We are looking forward to summer in the Pacific Northwest.

Love to all,

Gary and Judy

I am trying to perfect this technique myself. I used to collect all kinds of stuff that I expected to come in handy…someday. Occasionally one of these parts would come in handy for a project and of course that reinforced the hording instinct.

When we went full time traveling things had to change. Everything had to fit in a 17 foot trailer and weigh less than 7,000 pounds gross weight.

The other argument for just in time inventory is that you can easily waste a whole day trying to find that gizmo that you know you have…somewhere. The good news is that while you are looking for that gizmo you are likely to come across something else you misplaced some time ago, so the exercise is not a total bust.

So here is today’s adventure: We got ready to move this morning and there is this small puddle on the floor under the kitchen sink.

Stop me if you have heard this story before.

As I was saying, a small puddle under the sink. I assured Judy that I could fix it once we got parked this afternoon. When we got to our new camp in Mojave, California we went to move the kitchen slider out and now there is this largish puddle.

A quick inspection allowed me to identify the leaking fitting on the hot water heater. This did happen before and I did a jury rig fix that time because I didn’t have the correct parts to fix it then. Now in the interim period I did go to the hardware store and lay in some real just-in-time parts for the inevitable second failure. Only now I can’t find them. They are somewhere in the drawers, or in the cargo bay, or in the trailer or maybe in the junk box…

I removed every likely bin and box and tray and looked thoroughly for those gaskets without any luck at all. I did, however, find a bag of crutch tips that I bought just-in-time to fix the feet on one of the camp stools a few months ago. I was unable to find them when I went to do the repair.

All was not lost, however. In my search I located a bin of old parts from the garage on Bonneville Drive in Scappoose from six years ago. It had a collection of plumbers washers that I had stockpiled long ago. One gasket was just the right size.  It turned out to be too old and brittle, it split when I slid it over the fitting.  One was over-sized but still pliable.  I slipped it over a mandrel and chucked it in the drill press and turned it to the correct size with a rasp.

Yes it worked, no leak. Now I will stop at the hardware store and buy another set of gaskets and put them where I first looked this time. That way I will have two chances of finding one of them when I need them.

Oh yes, I got the legs on the camp stool repaired as a bonus.

As I finish this up I am looking out the windscreen of the motor home in the waning daylight. Just showing up through the trees are Venus and Mercury, side by side in the dusk. They are such a glorious sight. Look to the west just as the sun is setting to catch them tomorrow evening. Venus is the very bright “Evening Star” this month and Mercury is to its right and it is fairly bright. They will be side by side for a few more days and then Mercury will be lost in the glare of the sun again.

Love to all

Gary and Judy

Here is a brief recap. We were in Lake Havasu City and headed for the grocery store with the cargo trailer in tow. I let the front end of the tandem drop off the curb into the crosswalk. I had the brake fairly tight and had one foot on the sidewalk. The left chain-stay on the front suspension broke right at the brake boss. To get back we loaded the tire and the front end of the bicycle in the cargo trailer and walked it home.

I stripped the old parts; the dropouts, the suspension shock, the brake bosses and the pivot assemblies off of the old suspension and proceeded to build a new stronger version. I carefully painted it three coats of green paint and gave it an extra day to dry. I was so proud of my new stronger version until I assembled it on the bicycle. I suddenly remembered why the old version was asymmetrical and had no brace on the right side. The chain needed to go right through where the new stronger braces were placed.

I carefully charted out where the chain needed to be, and with saws and files I removed a section of one brace and removed the other brace entirely. I had to strengthen the one brace with a section of flat iron and braze everything back into place.

Rebuilt Brace

This morning I put it all back together and we rode around the campground loop twice just to see if things are workable. Hooray! Everything is working in perfect harmony. I wasn’t so confident as to paint the piece before assembly, so now I must take it back apart and repaint it.

It doesn’t look like rain for the next few days, so perhaps we will ride the shiny metal version for a few days to celebrate the event.

We have just finished up a week with friends at the Escapee, Chapter 32 Rally at Pass Mountain Regional Park in Apache Junction, Arizona. We hiked many of the park trails including one hike of over nine miles. Now we have moved across the valley to White Tanks Mountain Regional Park just to the west of Surprise, Arizona. The reoccurring rain this winter has created a lush green desert all around us. The Saguaros are fat with water, the Ocotillo cacti are leafing out and the desert plants are starting to bloom.

From my last blog you know that we broke our bicycle. For the past ten days I have been working to repair the damage by creating a replacement suspension fork for Path. My goal was to create a new part that was stronger and more rigid in all dimensions. I have indeed created a replacement part that achieved those goals. I coated it with three coats of paint and it is a thing of beauty indeed: Aye! in spite of having to use “rattle can” technology.

Ah yes, this does not seem to merit a “long walk.” Well you see there is this thing called the “chain line.” Indeed to transfer power from the pedals to the wheel, the bicycle chain must flow unobstructed from the chain-rings to the cassette. Now I remember why the original design only had a brace on one side!

New suspension looks good, but...

My exceedingly strong and beautiful-to-behold swing arm is of limited usefulness. Primarily down hill where one doesn’t need to pedal. Well actually the chain will traverse nicely from the very largest chain-ring, with 52 teeth to the very smallest cog, 12 teeth. To find the mechanical advantage in this mechanism one must divide the smallest into the largest.

This gives four and a quarter against. That is one turn of the pedals turns the wheel four and a quarter turns.

View of the Chainline

My choices are; one, talk Judy into doing all the up hill work and I will cover the downhill legs, or two, take the hack saw to my new suspension and revise it somewhat. I would take a pole on the subject, but I think Judy still has the winning vote.

We have finished up the Bluegrass Festival in Lake Havasu City and we are now attending to a group rally near Mesa, Arizona. In a few days I will get another chance to work on the project. Meanwhile we will still be walking.

Good Day from Gary and Judy and from strong but powerless Path.

P.S. make welcome Herb and Darlene, latest members of our blog family. We spent many hours jamming together over the past few weeks.

Herb and Darlene: If you register you can create a comment and say howdy to all the nice people.

Gary

You would think that once would be enough. Nooo… I had to go and do it again this last week.  I have to use a drop hitch to make the trailer tow level and spread the weight between both sets of tires.

Using the Leveling Jacks to Place Blocks Under the Tires

This makes the hitch vulnerable to curb cuts and steep aprons trying to get out of parking lots. Bending the hitch does two things, it angles the hitch up so that the trailer rides mostly on the rear tires. And the ball is no longer vertical.

How to get un hooked: Well we used the leveling jacks to get a plank under the tires and raise the hitch. I also placed a sacrificial skid block under the hitch. It took several repeats of the above combination of jack and block before we could get loose.

Skid Block Under Hitch

Once we got to the FMCA rally in Indio I went looking for some help. I found Wally at Metalrevelations, a metal art studio, on the internet. Wally was qualified as a heavy steel fabricator from his work on Space Mountain in Disney Word and Disney Land. They also had time to take my job on short notice and… they were close. We loaded the 50 pound stinger in the bicycle trailer and towed it behind “Path” the eight blocks over to their shop.

Compare the before and after photos below. The before hitch is from a 10,000 lb load leveling hitch assembly that I picked up. It allowed me to get the trailer tongue level, but had a lot of heavy metal hanging down in the slip-stream.

The new design brings the hitch back level and only has the nut hanging down. I plan to bolt a sacrificial wooden skid plate under the steel plate to protect the hitch bolt. That will have to wait until we get back together with the shop trailer. We had to drop it over a half mile away at the rally. No room for 53 foot long combination rigs around here. We will be leaving here on Sunday for Blythe California and the next Bluegrass festival.

Hitch Before, Note How Much Hangs Below the Nut.

Hitch is Now Level

As all our local friends know, we are back in Oregon and hanging out in Hillsboro near Renee and Neil’s place. We have been quite busy this spring. First we attended the Human Powered Vehicle Challenge over Memorial Day Weekend. This is an annual get-together and race conducted at Portland International Raceway. We raced against other laid-back, recumbent bicycles in ten mile, one hour and 200 meter races. We were consistent in that we placed second in our class in every race.

While we were there we met folks who had added electrical boost power to their bicycles. They had their own races, but just the idea of having an extra boost up the hills got my creative juices stirring. I have been very busy designing the Son-Of-Path, a new electric boost bicycle. I am adding lots of new ideas to the new bicycle. So far everything is on “paper.” That is a bit of a misnomer, for actually the drawings are all in the computer in a CAD drawing. That is good, because just about every day I change things around. I will put a photo of my doodles on the web page. The drawings do not include the seats just yet, but I will probably buy the seats from the Rans Corporation. I really only have to draw the attachment points for the seats.

We are part of a very creative family. Our daughter, Renee, has just come to market with a new pull-up diaper product. Up until now it has all been manufactured in their home. Judy and I have been helping. Renee and Judy sew the diapers and I come over in the afternoon and set snaps and take a load to the post office. You can read all about it at Antsy Pants but don’t order any, please! Also check below for photos.

For excitement this week, we broke the toilet. It has a spring loaded foot pedal to flush the toilet. Judy broke it on Sunday. I was able to find a parts list on the internet and order parts from the local RV store on Monday. These came in on Tuesday and it took me about an hour to replace the broken spring. I also replaced the seals just for good measure. It should be good for another 75,000 miles.

We will close now with greetings from Hillsboro Oregon. Yes, it is true, it rains a lot here in western Oregon. We have had some nice days, but this week has been drizzly.

Gary and Judy

Pull-up Diaper Making Factory

Concept Doodles for Our Next Bicycle

Tonight I am looking over my shoulder at the rising full moon. The crisp cool desert air sure makes the stars and the moon blaze in full glory. We had a little rain this morning in Benson, Arizona, but by the time we finished the pre-flight inspection it was beginning to clear up and the blue sky was breaking out all over. We almost feel guilty getting all of this warm weather when we see what the rest of the country is going through…almost, but not quite.

Once we got settled into our new campground in Gila Bend, Judy and I tore all the insides out of the kitchen cabinet. The sink drain flows through a stiff but flexible hose. This hose has to flex when we run the slide in and out. This is the second time it has started leaking. I didn’t have any brilliant new solutions for the connection so I suspect it will have to be fixed again in two or three years. Having all my tools in the shop annex just keeps paying off. I would guess that having someone crawl under there at a service center would have cost several hundred dollars. Judy snapped a photo of me disappearing into the cabinet. Now I am sure you don’t want to look at a photo of me crawling into the kitchen cabinet. However, if you have a sadistic streak you can go to the bottom of the page and see me trying to reach through the cabinet into the wall opening behind.The previous episode of this saga can be found at (under construction – link to come later) it is called “Rising Water.”

Well anyway, spring is coming and we will start our northerly migration in a few more weeks. Y’all take care.

Gary and Judy

Gary, Reaching Through the Cabinet into the Wall Behind to Repair the Hose Connection.

We scheduled this winter cleaning just two days ahead of the winter solstice. That way there would be minimum of daylight. The schedule fortunately coincided with a record breaking warm day here in Nashville Tennessee at 73 degrees. You heard me, 73 degrees.

How do you clean the basement? Well first you break a water line from the main water storage tank and drain about 20 gallons of water into the storage bay. Fortunately we had just arrived at our destination, the Madison Elks Lodge. I walked in to the lodge to arrange our stay, and when I returned there was water pouring out of the hatches and spreading across the parking lot. I popped open the hatch and put my thumb in the water line. Then I called for Judy to turn off the pump.

We assessed the situation, a quarter inch of water flooding over the basement carpet. We parked the coach and moved all of our belonging out onto the parking lot. I dug the wet/dry shop vac out of the Shop Annex and thoroughly vacuumed the carpet to a damp dry state. The warm day and blustery wind is quickly drying the compartment. Most of our “stuff” is in storage bins and thus did not get wet at all.

Tonight will be in the mid 30′s and tomorrow is expected to get somewhere around 50 degrees. The basement will dry out nicely and the carpet will be freshly cleaned. The Shop Annex also supplied the critical tubing connectors to replace the broken strainer in the water line.

The secret to a successful winter cleaning is to pick the proper day. Today is the warmest day we have seen all month. The weather prognosticators are assuring us that this was a record day and we will very quickly return to 40 degree days and 30 degree nights. They are even predicting 15 degrees for Sunday night and a fair probability of snow here in Nashville.

After supper this evening I was able to complete another repair job. The Pfaff sewing machine has been acting up. It would only go if someone held its cord and pushed just right. The conclusion I came to was not that the machine had an inferiority complex but rather it had a broken wire. With a new plug in hand I amputated its little plug and soldered a new one in its place. Judy is now sitting behind me happily sewing on another quilt for the church. Life is always interesting: Especially when this fellow Murphy keeps getting his fingers into things.

From Music City USA we wish you a very Merry Christmas.
Love from Gary and Judy

This is Our Clean Basement

A New Plug Repairs the Foot Speed Controller

Climbing onto the roof went on for two days and I decided it was time to repair the rotator. I disassembled the antenna and found the plastic rotator cuff had two ribs inside and they had broken off. I rummaged through my parts bins and found two setscrews that could take their place. After an hour of drilling, tapping and filing the refurbished part mated perfectly. It may be that the renewed part will work better with steel teeth that it did with plastic teeth.

We are now in Mississippi and yes the nights are often below freezing. We have been hanging around in the northern edge of the state. We have been staying in Corps of Engineer parks on two Mississippi lakes, Arkabutla, and Sardis. These parks are really nice parks with long sites with full water and electrical power. The best part is when we show our “Golden Age Pass” we get 50% off the already low price. Today our cost is five dollars. We are still finding lots to do and see. At Arkabutla Lake we spotted a large flock of White Pelicans and a couple dozen Great Blue Herons.

Both of these parks are nearly empty. Perhaps there is a message there: Freezing nights and empty parks, …should we be heading further south? Well we will head for Texas after the New Year. Arcturus. our Alpine coach is handling the cold weather just fine and we are able to keep walking and bicycling by bundling up with several layers of cool weather clothing. We really have no true winter cloths along. Meanwhile we are decorating the coach with Christmas lights and nativity scenes to get into the season. Neil, Renee and Miss Georgia will be dropping by for Christmas when we meet them in Nashville.

This may be a couple days waiting for the e-mail to go out. Our internet connection is tenuous at best here. It is times like this that we realize how much we come to rely on the computer connection to research our next destination, pay bills and keep in touch with all our friends back home and along the way.

For now we will close with Seasons Greetings and don’t let the Grinch steal your Christmas.

Gary and Judy.

Sunset at Hernando Point, Arkabutla Lake