We spent most of yesterday visiting with the NJ Gang. As usual - this included hugs from grandkids (and kids), plenty of updates on what's been going on in their lives, and new games for Grandma and Grandpa to play. Fortunately for us we knew how to play the new game in town. Good ol' BINGO. No special spinning boards to confuse me (see last year's story on "Spin Sorry"), or figuring our out to play Spongebob Squarepants' version of Monopoly, this time it was old fashioned BINGO! Actually - Grandma kicked some serious heine winning the first few games but I think Grandpa came in second with a few games in the win column. Fun times!!
Later this morning we will be meeting up with the NJ Gang and heading over to Philadelphia to watch the Disney Show On Ice at the Wachovia Center. Sounds like a fun afternoon! I haven't seen an ice skating show in many, many years. I'm sure there will be several Disney characters I won't recognize but I bet Alyssa and Emily will keep me straight on who's who.
I did a bit of troubleshooting on my balky leveling jack issue yesterday and found the problem.
Our leveling system and slide out operating system share the same hydraulic pump. The pump is actuated by one of two relays - one for the slideout system and one for the leveling system. Each relay has a separate in-line overcurrent protection fuse and it seems this 40 Amp fuse for the leveling system, and its rubber fuse holder, were seriously scorched. I'm not real sure what caused the fuse holder to melt but I suspect it was a high resistance connection caused by corrosion. I don't believe the fuse blew due to high current - the whole thing just got hot from the bad connection until the fuse burnt. I picked up a replacement fuse holder and some 40 Amp fuses yesterday and installed the new parts this morning. Have I told you lately how much I love it when stuff works the way its supposed to? Well I do - and it does. Another successful repair here at Mikees Mobil RV Repair and Day Spa.
Time to get cleaned up for the big ice skating show.
TTFN
These Maineiacs In Motion have finally begun our 2012 Winter Escape to the South. As planned - we left home around 6:00 AM yesterday morning and made the almost 500 mile trip to here in Clarksboro, NJ where we are parked at the Timberlane Campground. Timberlane is our normal parking spot when we are visiting the Evringham NJ Gang - Brian, Nicky, Alyssa, and Emily - it's not the fanciest parking spot in the world, nor the most inexpensive, but it's relatively close by to the Evringham Gang and it's open all year - in this country open in late December is a rare thing indeed.
Speaking of late December - the weather yesterday was certainly unseasonable. When we awoke in Maine it was in the high 40s and as we drove south it got colder! Leaving Maine in the 40s was way different than when we left last year in January at -8 degrees! It was pretty windy during our drive down as the weird weather front was moving through the eastern seaboard but I managed to keep Winne in her own lane most of the way.
We arrived here around 4:30 PM and settled in for the evening after a long day. As I've said before - that particular 500 miles of driving has got to be one of the worse we experience during our RV travels. Although we left in the middle of the week - there was still a lot of traffic since kids are off school for the Christmas - New Years holiday break and folks are still traveling.
Winne performed well during the drive which always makes me happy. I do have one small issue to deal with sometime during our stay as the leveling/stabilizing jacks failed to go down after we parked. I've had this happen once before and I'm pretty sure it's a loose or corroded ground connection.
That is pretty much the story from here in New Jersey. We plan on spending several days here visiting with the NJ Gang before heading further south. The weather forecast doesn't look too bad over the next few days so hopefully we can keep 'ol man winter fooled until we get further south and out of snow country.
Hope everybody has a great day!
Whew - it has certainly been a busy few days.
We started our Christmas week end on Saturday by having Eric, Jen, Stacy, Kaj, Bailey, Kyla, and Taylor over for an afternoon of gifts, gumbo, and gab. There was actually more food than just Gumbo - but they don't start with "G" so I left them out. That ... and most of the other foods involved lots of sugar and other stuff that's not good for you. The Gumbo came out pretty darn good if I do say so myself. Our family tradition is to open gifts on Christmas Eve - usually after Christmas Eve service - saving that last gift from Santa until Christmas morning. We did things a little different this year for a number of reasons but I think it worked out pretty well. It was great having the gang over for a few hours and Peggy and I got a lot of other things accomplished towards getting ready for leaving in a few days and we also made it to Christmas Eve church service later Saturday evening.
Sunday (Christmas Day) was a bit different for us as we spent a good deal of time taking down all the Christmas decorations and getting that stuff put away. We usually don't do that until after New Years - but this year our plan was to be much further south by then so our Christmas season was a bit compressed. We did get to visit with Brian, Nicky, Alyssa, and Emily via "Facetime" (an Apple version of video calling - like Skype) so that was fun ... and Stacy and Kaj invited us over for Christmas dinner so we got to have another great visit with them and the kids before heading home in a bit of a snowstorm. We really didn't get a lot of snow - but I think all we did get fell during our drive home!
Today was spent getting most of the things on our pre-travel checklist completed. We still have a few items on the list that really can't be done until tomorrow - like loading clothes and most of the food we intend to take, taking the last trip to the trash recycling facility (AKA - the "dump"), and Peggy intends to get one more deep tissue massage from her therapist. Some women would make sure they got in one more trip to get a manicure or something similar - not my wife - she wants her muscles pounded and prodded. She really misses her monthly therapy sessions when we're on-the-road.
That's pretty much our story here - we had a very Merry Christmas and now it's time to get us and Winne out of here before old man winter figures out we're leaving. Don't any of you Maineiacs tell him we're leaving or he will bring you all lots of cold weather and deep snow. Actually that would make Kaj really happy - he is looking forward to snowmobiling and ice fishing .... OK -- don't tell Kaj either.
And the rest of you folks who live south of the 43rd parallel better not tell him either --- or we'll end up bringing it with us. And you certainly don't want that!
1 and a Wake-Up.
It just doesn't get much better than this. The day before Christmas Eve - about an inch of fresh snow on the ground this morning - we get to take care of Taylor Anne all day today - Christmas music on in the background - all that - and today is Gumbo Day! That's right - it has become somewhat of a December tradition that I started a few years ago when out of the blue - I first decided to make Mikees Maineiac Gumbo. I have probably made Gumbo a total of 5 of 6 times - and I have never made it the same twice so who knows how it will come out this year. The ingredients are pretty much the same every year - Shrimp, Kielbasa, Okra, Bell Pepper, Celery, onion, scallions, parsley. As every good cook knows - the secret to a great gumbo is the roux. You need to cook it long enough ... but not too long!
Although it looks pretty wintry out there this morning - it was more like spring weather yesterday. It made it up into the mid 40s and the sun was out pretty much all day. Since it was so nice I took the opportunity to take care of a few more pre-travel items including checking out the towing lights on the Vue. It's a good thing I did because they weren't working correctly. I traced the problem down to a bad connection on Winne's trailer light connector. Several of the connector's electrical connections were pretty rusty so I decided to replace the whole connector to prevent future problems. My experience shows that these connections are never a problem until you have everything else all ready for travel - and the weather is nasty - making troubleshooting and repair a not-so-fun experience.
We are looking forward to a fun Christmas weekend. Visits from family tomorrow and visits from Santa on Sunday. Then it's all-hands-on-deck .... time to batten down the hatches here at the Maine House and set sail for points south.
Merry Christmas and best wishes to all ... from us Maineiacs (almost) in Motion.
Here it is ... the last day of Fall ... Winter starts tomorrow. We really can't complain too much about the Fall weather this year as it has been unusually mild. We did have that abnormal snowfall on Halloween Eve and 6 inches or so of snow on Thanksgiving Eve, but there is hardly a sign of snow on the ground now and we're only a few days from Christmas! I know I should probably knock on wood or bite my tongue or implement some other weird superstitious remedy - but I think we may be able to get outa here heading South without having to shovel out Winne. That will be a really good thing!
Although it has been turning pretty cold these last few days I managed to get outdoors and take care of a few more items on the pre-travel maintenance checklist: adjusted air pressure in all the tires, lubricated the entry steps, installed the tire pressure monitoring sensors, cleaned and lubricated the car tow bar. Nothing major - just "stuff" on the checklist that needed doing. The pre-travel maintenance list is just about complete now ... so it's time to move on to the RV load list. Our RVing friend Judi Curp was commenting on her blog just the other day how she is a "list maker" and enjoys checking items off her lists. Apparently that applies to me as well. I thought it was a unique trait that only engineers possessed - but I guess other folks have this affliction as well!
We plan on having lunch with Stacy and Taylor this afternoon and maybe get a few more more chores done before sunset. Speaking of sunset - that time sure does come early up here in the frozen north this time of year. Sunset today in Topsham, Maine is at 4:05 PM. By comparison ... sunset today in New Jersey is at 4:38 PM, in Savannah, GA its at 5:24 and in Bushnell, FL the sun doesn't set until 5:36 PM. All these places are in the Eastern Time Zone. I wonder how that affects the temperatures in those places? Well -- right now it is 30* in Maine, 55* in NJ, 70* in Savannah, and 75* in Bushnell, FL.
Guess where we're headed?
Nope - not in temperature but in days until Christmas and days until we roll south. We had a few hours of snowfall yesterday where it looked like we were living in a snow globe and the temperature was pretty close to single digits this morning at around 16* -- but we haven't made it yet. Regardless, the weather is starting to look much more winter-like and is telling us it's time to finish getting Winne outfitted for travel to warmer weather.
We have managed to get a few things done this week in preparation for leaving like taking care of mail forwarding. The last few trips we have used the postal service's temporary forwarding service to send our mail over to Stacy's for collection and review for anything important. This seems to work pretty good for us so we're doing that again this trip. They (the USPS) do not forward non first-class mail so we lose any magazines that would have arrived - but we don't receive many anyway so that's not a problem. Actually - we don't receive much mail at all anymore. We still receive a few bills in the mail but most of our bills and payments are taken care of on-line ... and we all know how often people write real letters anymore! I for one am just fine with the USPS cutting back to 5 (or less) days per week on pickup and delivery to residences. They certainly need to do something different to cut back on expenses!
I sure am glad to see the price of gasoline dropping a few cents per gallon! I know I can't get too excited because it can go up a whole lot faster than it tends to go down. But I'll take it nonetheless - every little bit helps at 7.2 miles per gallon.
Speaking of trip expenses ... I have done some looking at our last several years of budgets and actual spending habits and have confirmed what I suspected for some time now. In our situation where we have a house to maintain here in Maine and tend to travel in our motorhome for 2-3 months at a time - our living expenses while on the road are just about equal to our living expenses while we are home - not counting gasoline for the motorhome. When we travel we cancel our cable TV service and save a good deal on electricity, heating, and other utility costs - especially when we travel in the winter. Those savings pretty much equal the added of costs of campground fees if we take advantage of weekly/monthly rates and reduced rates at our membership club parks like Escapees and Passport America. Now - if Winne got 25 mpg and the price of gasoline was $0.32 a gallon we would be all set to travel as much as we could handle!
OK - I have rambled enough for today. Time to put away this keyboard and start accomplishing items on that checklist. Before you know it we will be putting away all the Christmas decorations and heading out for the Maineiacs in Motion 2012 Winter RV Traveling Adventures.
Nine and a Wake-Up ...
I suppose it's like riding a bike. If you have taken care of a baby once - even if it was a long time ago - I guess you don't totally forget how!
Yesterday Stacy asked if we would watch Taylor for several hours today. Of course I said yes - then I remembered - Peggy had a function to attend this morning and that would mean Grandpa would have Taylor duty - all by himself - no backup - no safety net! No problem I says - I did it once - I'm sure I can do it again! The scary part was that Stacy actually trusted me to give it a go!
So guess how I spent my morning. Actually - Taylor and I got along just fine. She played with Grandpa and listened to his stories. I fed her when she looked and sounded like she was hungry and changed her pants when the little yellow line turned blue. Did you know that they had these new hi-tech diapers that changed color on the outside when they are wet on the inside? What will they think of next?
Taylor and I survived the morning but I gotta tell you that taking care of a 3 month old is a tough job. They need/want what they need/want - right now! Not in a few minutes, not after I get done with what I'm doing, but right NOW.
But then again - maybe Grandpa is just a big softie.
Here we are ... December 12th .... only 12 more shopping days till Christmas ... and only 15 and a wake-up till we roll south. We still have some Christmas cards to mail out and a little shopping to do, mainly for each other, but other than that - we are as ready as we are going to get and are simply enjoying the season. The weather here in Maine has been abnormally nice. Other than those weird snowstorms on Halloween and Thanksgiving eves we have had really fantastic weather. We need this pattern to hold up at least until after we get further south!
I spent a few hours this morning getting Winne's Satellite TV system activated and working. Yes ... I know ... we (I) are very spoiled when it comes to the "finer things" in life - like being able to watch a few shows on non-broadcast TV. Does this make me one of the 1% those "occupy" folks keep complaining about? I suppose it might - but if so -- I plead guilty!
When we purchased Winne she came with a manually operated crank-up satellite dish. In our first few years of RVing we used this dish with the Directv network to receive satellite services while on the road. Since we don't have satellite service here at the house we had to cancel and then re-initiate service each time we returned and subsequently left on another trip. We found this chore tiresome and so we went without satellite service for a few years. Recently, the Dish Network (Directv's competitor) has come out with a plan specifically for RVers. The "Dish For My RV" plan offers their service for a set monthly charge - no contracts - no start/stop restrictions - you simply pay up front for a month of service and keep paying each month that you want service. If you want to stop the service - you simply quit paying. If you want to start up again - you simply start paying again. This sounded like something that might work well for us so I purchased the necessary receiver and had it activated this morning. The main drawback I see with this setup over the Directv setup is that all of the Directv "Standard Definition" (Non-High Definition) programming was on one satellite so we only had to point our dish to find one satellite signal each time we setup. With Dish - their Standard Definition programming is spread over two satellites so we will have to manually re-point Winne's dish periodically when changing channels. They make antenna systems that automatically take care of all this - but for now I think we'll do it the manual way ... after-all we are "camping" ya know so we'll have to "rough-it" here and there.
After playing with that for awhile I decided to bring Winne home from her storage location. On the way to the house I stopped and topped off the Propane tank -- one more item off the checklist. Now that Winne is home I'll start taking care of the other items on that list.
One of those "To Do" items is to replace the Carbon Monoxide (CO) Detector. Did you know that CO detectors have a "useful lifetime" and need to be replaced periodically? Well they do and it seems the one in Winne should have been replaced several years ago. After checking out Winne's detector I checked the one in the house ... yep - that one needs replacing also! Smoke detectors, CO detectors, combustible gas detectors, fire extinguishers -- it sure would be nice to simply buy these things once and expect them to work forever. Unfortunately that isn't the case and since "safety" really should not be taken lightly - it's time to get those things back in tip-top shape.
That's just about the whole story with us right now. Fixin' to have a Merry Christmas and getting ready to safely get these Maineiacs back in Motion.
Did you ever notice that things tend to go in cycles? When you misplace one thing - you seem to misplace several in a relatively short length of time. When one appliance fails - another seems to be close behind. These last 4-5 months have been auto mechanic months for me. It started back in the middle of the summer when I volunteered to help out on that '68 Mustang project. Then it progressed to resurrecting that '34 Ford Streetrod. Since then I have replaced the timing belt on Eric's Ford Focus, helped to replace the starter, water pump, brake master cylinder, and brake lines on a '97 Mazda 626 - replaced one front hub/bearing assembly on my truck and finally both front hubs/bearing assemblies on the Vue this last Monday and Tuesday. That's it - I quit! No more auto mechanics for me for several more months (unless I have to)!!
The good news is that the noise in the Vue is gone! The drivers side front bearing was definitely going bad so after I got that one replaced I decided to replace the passenger side as well. Since I was doing the work over at my friends place - using his car lift, and since the tools were already out, and since the bearings had over 130,000 miles of use - I figured now would be the best time.
With that project behind me it's time to get serious about getting us ready to roll south. Only 20 more days and a wake-up ... that's right! ... three weeks from today we plan on leaving on the first leg of our journey to New Jersey. I checked out the local temperatures along our intended itinerary this morning. At 11:25 AM it was 75 degrees in Savannah, GA and 79 degrees in Bushnell, FL. Let's hope that trend keeps up! Unfortunately it was only 42 degrees in Summerdale, AL and about the same here in Maine! That needs to change for sure!!
I've got a few minor house projects to take care of before we leave so I'll try to get those done this week. Sometime next week I'll awaken Winne from storage and bring her over here to the house to begin her "outfitting" for the trip. Once that happens the neighbors will begin to talk. Wonder when are they leaving? Wonder where they are going? Wonder when they will be back? Wonder what gas mileage that big beast gets? Wonder how that thing drives in the snow? I love it when the neighbors Wonder!
In between all that we will continue to enjoy the Christmas season in Maine. We drove to Richmond last evening to watch Bailey play in a basketball game and we hope to watch both he and Kyla play in a few more before we go. It's been quite a few years since we watched high school BBall - brings back old memories of traveling all around the state, usually in a snowstorm, to watch Brian and Eric play. Ah yes - those were good times ... and don't believe any of the stories they might tell of their father's over-the-top behavior at a few of those games. It wasn't really me ... it was my evil twin!
Things were going so well. Christmas tree is up, house decorations are almost complete, shopping is almost done, truck maintenance is complete ... Yup ... just sit back and enjoy the season for 23 days and a wake-up and then we're off - simple as that!
Well - until yesterday when a new project was added to the list. For the past several months I have been complaining about the road noise when driving the Vue. I have thought it was simply noisy tires but lately I have been more and more suspicious that I might have a wheel bearing going bad. Peggy and I took a short drive yesterday and I have pretty much confirmed that at least one of the front bearings is going bad and needs replacing. The car only has about 65,000 driving miles on it but has been towed another 65,000 miles so those bearings actually have seen over 130,000 miles. I'm not surprised they need replacing - I just hadn't planned on it - until now. Soo - it looks like next week I will be purchasing more front hubs (Ouch times 2) and fighting more car parts off and then on. Actually I look at it as a positive thing ... I would much rather have the issue come up now than while we are traveling. At least here I have the tools and facilities to get the job done!
Other than that minor inconvenience - we are doing pretty well. We got to babysit Taylor Anne on Friday night for a few hours while Stacy and Kaj attended a work related function. She was in a playful mood and Grandpa even got a few smiles out of her. It truly is amazing how fast a baby grows and learns at this young age. She seems to do something different and new each time we see her.
Ahh-Yes ... it is the end of the calendar year and time once again for all of us diligent American Taxpayers to gather up our tax related paperwork in preparation for calculating our Federal and State income tax "fair share." Our government determines what is "fair" and then we get to calculate if we have met that requirement. If we haven't already given our "fair share" - then we need to pony up the remainder. If we have given "too much" during the year - then the government will give it back to us.
I've heard our President discussing this process several times over the past few months. It seems he believes that some folks aren't paying their "fair share." What happened here? Did these folks just start cheating on their paperwork? Are they tax avoiding criminals? How did this happen and when did it start?
It seems that in our republic - Congress ultimately decides what is "fair" when it comes to levying income taxes. A previous Congress decided what was "fair" - and apparently most folks are following the law and paying their "fair share." Our President and his political party simply want to redefine "fair" so that more money can be raised while upsetting the least number of voters. Now it would be one thing if the President and his pals wanted to raise this additional money to help pay off our debt - but apparently this isn't the case (surprise - surprise!). Nosiree - these gals and fellas want more money so they can spend more money. Not only can they spend more money - they can keep more folks on the government payroll and make sure they keep voting for them!
Sounds "Fair" to them!
Me? ... I'm thinking that flat tax idea is sounding pretty good!
