Time To Head East

We have now been in Arizona for over a month. Overall, and considering that it was February ... it has been a good month. We have seen very little rain and have had mostly sunny days during our visit. The temps have been a little on the cool side - only reaching 80 degrees on a couple of days and generally in the 60s - but you won’t find us Maineiacs complaining ... too much.

But it is time to start heading back east. We don’t plan on heading too far north of I-10 anytime soon ... and will generally retrace our steps heading east. We still do not have a plan much more detailed than that and will try to keep travel days around 200 miles and not more than 2 in a row. I see the whole southern part of the nation will be seeing a cold snap these next few days so I guess there is no avoiding that ... but hopefully that will keep the thunderstorm activity to a minimum over the next week or so.

We have enjoyed the last week here in the Tucson area - staying East of Tucson this time at the Pima County Fairgrounds. The fairgrounds has been fairly busy during the last week with an equestrian show (jumping horses) going on, the LaMesa RV folks showing their wares, a 5K on Saturday at the nearby drag strip, and of course the local weekend oval track racing at the nearby NASCAR track. All sorts of interesting noises and activities all around us!

Peggy and I didn’t play tourist much this past week but did get a chance to do a little shopping at Camping World (always a fun time), took in a movie on our rainy Saturday (Call of the Wild ... good flick!), visited a couple of our favorite local eateries (Daisy Mae’s and Little Anthony’s 50s diner), kicked a few tires at the local RV show, and even watched the Equestrian Events for a short time. 

We have been gone on this trip for about 7 weeks and have traveled about 3,700 miles while staying at 17 different places. That also means we have had 17 travel days. 17 travel days out of about 49 total days (about 1/3 for you math challenged friends) is pretty relaxing by our past standards. On our first coast-to-coast trip we managed 24 travel days over 41 total days! Glad to see those days are behind us!

I figure it took us 3 weeks to get here ... so 3-4 weeks to get home sounds about right. Only about 2 weeks until the Daylight Savings Time mess starts, only about 3 weeks to the first day of Spring, and only about 6 weeks until the snowbanks melt in Southern Maine.

Meanwhile we still have warmth to try and find, BBQ to enjoy, and perhaps even some more Gulf Shrimp to feast on .. and oh yeah .. some 3,000 miles of USA still to experience!

Still Searching Arizona

We are continuing to enjoy the desert southwest during our 2020 Winter Escape. We are escaping the snow and bitter cold of the northeast but the mornings here in central Arizona still get a bit chilly - down to about 40 degrees - but the afternoons are quite comfortable in the low 70s. Such is life here in the desert with 30 degree temperature swings daily. The best news is that we get to enjoy sunshine pretty much all day - everyday.

We finished up our week up near Wickenburg at the Escapee “North Ranch” last week. One of our highlights was attending church last Sunday at a real Cowboy Church held in the majestic and historic Saguaro Theater in downtown Wickenburg. The theater was packed with lots of Cowboys and Cowgirls and Pastor Wes did a nice job. We had a bonus brunch with Jim and Ellie afterwards at the Spur Cafe next door.

We left Wickenburg last Tuesday after having a nice breakfast out with Jim and Ellie at the Nichols West restaurant in Congress. Nichols West may be a small little place in out of the way little Congress, AZ but the food is well worth the stop if you happen to find yourself traveling between Kingman and Wickenburg!

We also got Winnie The Two weighed by the Smartweigh folks on our way out of North Ranch. We had WTT weighed 3 years ago while we were staying at the Escapee Park in Bushnell, FL so this was an opportunity to see if “we” had gained any weight along the way — and an opportunity to have the Colorado weighed as well. Before you all start commenting on how much weight I must have gained along I-10 (Norm Payne) ... let me report that WTT with us in it weighs just about exactly what it weighed in 2017! Of course comparing weights on two different sets of scales with different amounts of fuel and water on board is an imprecise task ... but overall we are still well within our weight limits - including pulling the Colorado which weighed in at 4,400 lbs.

After leaving North Ranch on our one rainy day so far in AZ — we traveled down about 100 miles here to Casa Grande, AZ where we pulled in to another Escapee Affiliated Park - RoVers Roost. RoVers Roost is a Co-Op Park where all the lots are owned by Escapee Club Members but some are rented out to us Club Members when the owner is not using the lot. We were able to obtain a nice spot with full facilities for a really decent price for the week. Not bad at all for no reservation in Arizona - during peak snowbird season!

Peggy and I have stayed here at RoVers Roost in the past for just a day or two - but have not stayed long enough to check out the local area - so this time we thought we might do that!

Last Wednesday we spent a few hours checking out the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument - just east of the city about 10 miles. The National Monument consists of the remains of ancient structures built by the Ancestral People of the Sonoran Desert over 1,000 years ago. The “Great House” ruins consist of a four story building made using Caliche (concrete like mixture of sand, clay, and calcium carbonate (limestone)). These ancient peoples were quite numerous in the desert southwest back about 1300 or so but had pretty much disappeared by the time the Spanish missionaries found these ruins in 1694. Peggy and I took the 45 minute guided tour by a National Park Volunteer Guide which was very interesting.

On Friday we ventured North to visit the Superstition Mountains just east of the Phoenix/Mesa/Chandler metro areas. We drove to the Lost Dutchman State Park along the Apache Trail at the base of Superstition Mountain. We spent a little time touring the small State Park with gorgeous views of Superstition Mountain and then drove a short ways northeast along the Apache Trail to another nice viewing spot but alas — the road was closed to all but local travel beyond that point due to ongoing road construction. I’m told there is some beautiful country to view up there around Apache Lake and Canyon Lake. Perhaps next time!

We finished our tour of the area by playing tourist at the Goldfield Ghost Town where we checked out some of the many tourist shops and had lunch at the Mammoth Steakhouse and Saloon. A fun place to spend a few hours on a nice February afternoon.

Saturday was Barn Hunt Day! What is a Barn Hunt you might ask!? Well ... a Barn Hunt is where you take your dog to an arena full of hay bales and turn it loose to find rats that are strategically hidden among the hay bales. That’s it in a nutshell ... but it is a competition enjoyed by lots of people around the country ... including Jim and Ellie Meacham ... and their dog Baxter. Since Ellie and Baxter were participating in a Barn Hunt down here in Casa Grande while we were here - we decided to go and check out the action. We didn’t get to see Baxter in action but we did watch several dogs hunt through the hay bales for the hidden rats (actual rats placed in PVC tubes with holes in them). Some of the dogs were really successful while others were more content to run around the hay bales and frustrate their owners!

See ... you can find entertainment of all kinds ... just about anywhere ... all you have to do is look for it!

Tomorrow we plan to head south and a bit east again ... all the way back to Tucson for our final week stay here in Arizona. This time we hope to stay at the Pima County Fairgrounds RV Park which has a full service RV Park but is first come first serve and no reservations. You may remember that we stayed there back in 2016 ... and ended up buying a new Motorhome ... I know Peggy remembers! I understand there is some sort of Rodeo going on there next week. 

Who knows what horseplay these Maineiacs can get into!

Experiencing Arizona

When I last posted Peggy and I had just made it to Arizona and were about to visit Tucson for a week stay. Well we did — and we enjoyed our stay where the weather was a bit on the cool side but we did get a couple of very nice days in the high 70s to get outside and soak up some of that Arizona sunshine. 

We generally just enjoyed not traveling during our week in Tucson although we did get out to visit some our favorite spots like El Choro’s Mexican Restaurant, Daisy Mae’s Steakhouse, and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

Our go-to spot while in Tucson is usually Justin’s Diamond J RV park which is west and south of Tucson several miles. We like Justin’s because it is out of the hustle and bustle of Tucson, we can better view the gorgeous Arizona sunsets and bright clear starry nights, and because it is right at the edge of the Saguaro National Park where we can walk out of the park on some trails and will immediately be in the desert walking among all kinds of cactus and other desert vegetation. Not a real hospitable place too hang out for hours on end - but beautiful nonetheless. You do have to be careful when walking out in the desert as there are all kinds of dangers like:

1) Easy to get lost if you don’t pay attention to where you came from.
2) It is really dry and it is easy to become dehydrated - So carry and drink plenty of water.
3) You may find a critter or two that doesn’t care to be disturbed (fortunately those snakes aren’t too active in the winter months).
4) Any and all of the vegetation you come across will hurt you if you get too close.

Peggy learned the hard way about danger #4 during one of our morning walks when she wondered off the path a bit and got too close to a Teddy Bear Cholla. Those things have lots of really sharp long needles that will go right through most clothing and are difficult to remove. She had to suffer through me pulling out the majority of the needles through her pant leg and then pulling out the remainder from her ankle. It really wasn’t too bad but not a pleasant experience at all!

We left Tucson last Tuesday and made the 100 mile drive north - up I10 - around Phoenix to the west a bit - and then north again up past  Wickenburg to the very small town of Congress, AZ. Congress isn’t much more than a few homes and businesses but it is home to the Escapees North Ranch RV Park. North Ranch is one of the Escapee RV Club’s “Rainbow” Parks which has a small (about 120 sites) RV campground and then a community of several hundred small privately owned lots with everything from full blown homes built to not much more than a gravel spot with hookups to park your RV. North Ranch is also home to our RV friends Jim and Ellie Meacham who purchased a lot w/home several years ago while still RVing but have now transitioned to full-time home owners having left their gypsy ways behind them! We were treated to an arrival day dinner over at the Meacham’s place complete with grilled bacon wrapped pork tenderloin watched over by Grillmaster Jim. We had a great time catching up with Jim and Ellie and their friends Don and Vickie Crow who we have met here before. It was great fun ... but we missed visiting with Mike and Pat McFall. Mike and Pat have been good friends of Jim and Ellie for many years, and well known to RV’ers nation-wide when they were traveling and selling the Pressure Pro Tire Pressure Sensing Systems (and other RV related ‘Stuff”). Mike recently passed away after a long bout with Cancer and Pat was busy with family getting ready for Mike’s Memorial Celebration which was held yesterday.

Mike really was a special guy that I only met a few times but it was hard not to appreciate a genuinely special man. A cowboy, police officer, investigator, pilot, skydiver, entrepreneur, and just fun to talk to. His memorial celebration yesterday was held here at North Ranch in the activities building and attended by around a hundred folks. Western Music, Cowboys, Line Dancing ... it was a celebration Mike would have liked. I’m really glad we were here to participate.

We also got a chance on Thursday to travel over to Prescott to visit with Larry and Linda Fuegan. I used to work with Linda back in the Maine Yankee days .... and she and husband Larry made the move out here to Prescott in the late 90s. Linda treated us to some great homemade soups for lunch - including a fantastic seafood chowder and an equally great “stuffed pepper” soup. As usually happens when we visit — there was too little time for all the visiting we had to do — but we enjoyed every minute. Well maybe except for the drive down the mountainous switchbacks at night! Just kidding (sorta). It’s always pretty special to visit Larry’s workshop while we are there. Larry is an internationally acclaimed knife maker who’s work is just fantastic. From his home forged Damascus blades, intricately carved blade handles, hand engraved everything, precious metal inlays ... unbelievable workmanship. I took these pictures of his latest project in progress .. an Inca warrior inspired piece being made for a collector. Look closely and you can see the artwork he started with and some of the intricate carving already started. This piece will have some $5,000 to $10,000 worth of gold involved before it’s finished. Just WOW!

So here it is ... Saturday the 8th of February. The Super Bowl is behind us, Impeachment is behind us (it is isn’t it?), Daytona is in front of us, Spring can’t be far behind and it’s a fine looking morning here in Arizona. You folks in Maine remember — we love you all and hope to see you and green grass soon!

Through the Desert Southwest

We have continued our westward journey this past week. We spent a few days in the San Antonio area where we visited a few of our favorite haunts ... meaning places we like ...that usually have really good food. Let’s see now ... in about 4 days we had Cooper’s BBQ twice (in New Braunfels), Bill’s BBQ once (in Kerrville), and Mexican food and Margaritas at the Original on the Riverwalk once. Imagine what we could accomplish with more time! Well there still is the trip home. 

We met up with our RV buddy Rod Kendall on one of our trips to Cooper’s and had a nice visit. As many of you know, we all lost Rod’s wife and all around great person Debbie Kendall several months back ... and we sure missed laughing with her on this trip ... but we enjoyed our time with Rod for sure ... and took a little time to celebrate Debbie as well.

We stayed north of San Antonio in New Braunfels for 3 days and then traveled about 90 miles west to Kerrville for one night before heading out on our trip across West Texas. As we usually do, we stopped for an overnight in Fort Stockton, TX and then finished our westward Texas trip the next day making it across the Texas-New Mexico border to the little town of Anthony, NM. 

We have some dear family friends in El Paso who just happen to drive north into New Mexico every Saturday for some fantastic authentic Mexican Food at a very small cafe in the little town of La Mesa, NM ... Chopes. And it just happened to be Saturday. And we just happened to be hungry ... so Chopes it was for us as well! Other folks must know about this place as well ... it was really busy  ... the food was great ... and the visit with Reed and Sandy was great too. It remains the only place I have seen where you can get a triple Chile Relleno plate for $9 and change! As my friend Arnold would say ... “I’ll be back!”

We headed further west on Sunday ... through the high desert of southern New Mexico and into the high desert of south eastern Arizona to here in Willcox, AZ. Willcox, AZ is a small community along I-10 that I doubt many folks stop to see. It is a typical southwestern town that probably saw its heyday many years ago - but still has its claims to fame. Like being home to Rex Allen “The Last of the Singing Cowboys.” Or how about home to the Marty Robbins Museum? Or perhaps just an interesting place too stay while taking an afternoon to drive about 40 miles south to what appears to be the middle of nowhere to visit the Chiricahua National Monument.

Peggy and I spent a few hours visiting this natural wonder nestled in the Chiricahua Mountains - ancestral home to the fierce Chiricahua Apache people. It was a bit chilly and windy during our visit but we still enjoyed getting out and viewing the amazing pinnacle rock structures left behind after ancient volcanic eruptions and thousands of years of erosion.

Peggy has the better pictures on her phone ... with me you kinda get the random photos!

Today we move on to our first somewhat long stay (a whole week) here in Arizona ... right at the edge of the Sonoran Desert just outside Tucson.

Just about 3 weeks and 3,300 miles behind us ... A few Western Leg statistics:

Distance Traveled: About 3,300 miles

Fuel Mileage: About 9 mpg (and about 0.4 mpg less that our previous avg. ... I blame it on towing the Colorado - about 800 pounds heavier than the Fusion I figure).

Traveled through 18 states (a few were only corners of a state ... but I counted them anyway!)

Stayed overnight in 13 spots - Two “new” ones for us ... Tristate RV Park in Matamoras, PA and Grande View RV Park here in Willcox, AZ.

Cheapest Diesel Fuel ... Orange, TX @ $2.68/gallon
Most Expensive Diesel Fuel ... Port Jervis, NJ @ $3.46/gallon (one of those corners of a state)

Enough of all that ... time to get back on the road for another 90 or so miles. 

See ya in Tucson!

Along The Trail West

This morning the Maineiacs find ourselves in Brookshire, TX - just West of Houston along I-10. We are staying in an RV Park that we have stayed in before ... but many years ago. But let me back up a little ...

We finished our trip down I-81 and into Tennessee some 10 days ago and we spent a few days relaxing and visiting with friends Darrell and Judy Patterson and we also got in a nice visit with Gene and Judi Curp who braved the line of thunderstorms between Crossville and Maryville and drove over for a few hour visit. It’s always great to visit with good friends along our travel path and our visit to Crossville was no exception.

We finished up our trip south last week and arrived in Summerdale, AL at the Rainbow Plantation Escapee Park on Tuesday. Since it was Tuesday that meant it was dinner at the Clubhouse day so we met up with more friends for some swamp soup and loaded baked potato cooked by Chef Karen and served by her host of kitchen volunteers. It was great visiting with Norm and Linda Payne and seeing the great progress Norm has made in recovering from a stroke he had a few months back! 

Those of you following our travels on Facebook already know that although our time in Summerdale was short - we managed to eat well. In only 4 days we ate at the Clubhouse for 2 meals, ate out for a Mexican Dinner with Norm and Linda one night, had our normal family style buffet dinner with Norm. Linda, and Don and Gloria Martin on our final night ... and also managed to eat out for lunch all three days ... twice for shrimp at Big Daddy’s Grill and once for more shrimp and swamp soup at the Fish River Grill. Whew ... that’s a lot of good eating and visiting in such a short visit! Perhaps we will stop by again on our way back home to hit the spots we missed this time!

We left Summerdale last Saturday and drove through some pretty intense rain squalls but made it to near Lafayette, LA where we pulled in just as the major thunderstorm line was coming through. Great timing as we were off the road and high and dry as the storm moved on East.

As the storm moved through it pulled down the really frigid air from the Midwest and we drove through some pretty decent winds yesterday and temps back in the 50s with the low last night back into the 40s. I may have had to shift back to long pants but I am hopeful for a warming trend as we head further west.

Today we will have another travel day ... but a short one ... as we head towards our mid-Texas rest stop in New Braunfels ... just a bit north and east of San Antonio. We plan on staying in the San Antonio area for a few days ... relaxing in the Hill Country ... more visiting with RV friends ... and perhaps a meal or two of some great Texas BBQ!

Thanks for checking in with us ... see ya further on down the western trail.

The Trials and Tribulations of Winter Travel

So ... We did get the snow cleared off Winne, got all our Stuff loaded and we did hit the road yesterday morning around 7:30 AM. The temp was around 20 degrees and the skies were relatively cloudy but no snow in our future.

After watching the weather forecasts for the past several days - we decided to avoid the Tuesday night snow forecast for the Mohegan Sun area of CT and continue our trip further inland to hopefully avoid the snow. We traveled down I295 through Portland where we picked up I95 to continue our trek through Maine, then New Hampshire, and into Massachusetts before heading around Boston on I495 and then further southeast on I-84. We finished off Connecticut  on I-84 and then a short stretch of NY, even a tiny corner of New Jersey, before finally landing in eastern PA along I-84 in Port Jervis, PA ... a long day and some 360 or so miles later.

Temps in Port Jervis last night got down into the mid teens but we were able to stay nice and warm in Winne using our electric Fireplace, an electric space heater in the basement area, and our propane furnace.

For some unknown crazy reason we awoke early this morning and since we were awake anyway ... we finished our normal morning routines and then hit the road again - heading east on I84 - right around 8 AM.

Today was a much more challenging travel day. As we traveled in the Northest through the Pocono Mountains east of Scranton, PA it started snowing ... just enough to keep things “interesting.” Things got even more interesting after we passed a snowplow/dump truck that was “brine-ing” the road surface. Whatever was in that brine solution got all over our windshield — then was smeared around by our wipers and would not come off no matter how much wiper fluid was applied! Not having much choice - we drove through the falling snow with limited visibility for the next 30 or so miles ... not fun at all!

The weather improved slightly once we traveled south of Wilkes Barre, PA ... and we finally found a rest stop where we could clean that Yukky windshield ... so things were looking up!

Then we hit several stretches of snow squalls that brought in whiteout conditions for short stretches — to be followed by sunny skies and then 20 mph winds, Weird conditions to say the least!

But we and Winne survived it all and we pulled in here in Winchester, VA around 3PM ... another 300 miles behind us!

It looks like it is going to get down into the teens again tonight — so it will be another night of keeping the heaters doing their job(s).

Tomorrow we plan on heading further south along I-81 and hope to land near Ft Chiswell, VA — where we are looking forward to lows in the high 30s and highs in the 50s. No short pants yet ... but looking better!

So that’s the way it is tonight here on the road in northern Virginia. The Maineiacs are doing fine, staying warm, and looking forward to getting Winne and the Colorado clean again soon!

Getting Ready To Get Set ...

Here we are on the downside of Christmas and working on starting a new decade. We had a fun last week having Brian, Nicky, Alyssa, and Emily visiting from New Jersey and spending some fun times with them and the Maine Evringhams. We ate too much, laughed a lot, and just generally enjoyed the holiday. It’s always fun seeing our three great kids and all the grandkids enjoying each other’s company. We were fortunate having Bailey make it home for a few days but we missed having Kyla around. She had to suffer by visiting the beaches of Hawaii.

Peggy and I have started getting the house back in post Christmas condition. The tree and all its trimmings are back in the attic and the remaining decorations will be working their way there in the next few days. 

So now it’s time to shift focus to getting Winne and us ready for travel. The weather has been fairly decent these past few days so I took advantage and removed Winne from storage and brought her home for pre-trip preparations and loading. Fortunately she awoke from her summer/fall nap with no complaints.

Peggy has a couple of appointments to take care of over the next week before our planned leave date on Tuesday January 7th ... leaving us with 8 days and a-wake-up to complete all the things on our pre-trip to-do list.

The plan for this trip is mostly standard ... we leave and head south towards the Gulf of Mexico as quickly as reasonable ... we rest up ... and then we continue our adventure. This year we intend to turn west after resting up in Alabama and follow I-10 generally to Arizona. As is usual for us ... the trip home is unplanned except for the return date of around April 1st.

This will be our first trip towing our Chevy Colorado ... so that will be different. We are also going to try a slightly different initial travel routine this time. The last several years we have endured a really long first day of travel - about 500 miles to central Pennsylvania and about the nearest open RV Park along our route. This time we are going to break that initial trek into two travel days by staying overnight about half way ... at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut. This will require us to “dry camp” for one night using our on-board resources for water, heat, and electricity. We have stayed overnight there several times in the past with no issues ... it will just be a bunch colder this time. No worries ... we’ll have plenty of heat using our generator for electric heat in addition to our propane heat.

So that’s the plan ... stay tuned to see how it all works out!

Getting Ready For Santa

Mid- December already! My how time flies. It seems like we just finished Thanksgiving Dinner ... well I suppose we did since it hasn’t been that long since I had the last of the turkey in a sandwich. We had a fun Thanksgiving with all the Maine Gang over for Food, Family, and Football. 

The Maine Gang also got together for a fun night of “G” League Professional Basketball last week when we all headed to Portland to watch the Maine Red Claws take on the Delaware Blue Coats. Sounds a bit revolutionary now doesn’t it? The Red Claws are owned by the Boston Celtics and is sort of their “development” team ... so we got to see some of their young talent that sometimes play with the Big Team. Even the young ones (Taylor, Sophie, and Aiden) seemed to enjoy themselves — although it was waay past bedtime!

I did get my motorcycle pieces and my Chevelle hood over to Glen the Paint Man a few weeks ago and then he performed his magic. We managed to reinstall the hood on the Chevelle where it will sit in storage until spring ... and I went ahead and re-installed the motorcycle pieces as well. The “Big Bear” is all dressed up in her new paint awaiting re-emergence from hibernation in the spring!!

With Peggy doing most of the work ... we managed to get our Christmas tree up and the other Christmas decorations in the traditional spots. We are now ready for whatever Santa has in mind. One of our big presents this year will be a visit from the New Jersey Gang who will be joining us later this week for a few days of visiting. It’s always great to see them and catching up with all that’s going on in their lives.

We may actually have some snow on the ground while they are here. We had a few inches of snow until the big rain event a couple of days ago and now it is all gone! But no worries ... I see that more is on the way over the next week or so ... I’m fairly certain we will have a white Christmas.

So ... we have a busy several days ahead of us getting ready for our visitors and last minute Christmas preparations ... then a busy week of visiting ... then a busy week of trip preparations and then ... we are hitting the road once again ... destination somewhere warmer!

22 and-a-wake-up!

Climate Refugees

Once we made it passed Halloween it seems November has pretty much flown by. I managed to complete the season leaf picking up process without breaking or buying any new additional equipment, I completed installing the new engine in the “old” yard tractor and it is running great again ... and has plenty of oil, and I even got both tractors in their storage spots for the winter.

We did receive a little snow/ice about a week ago but it all melted away this last week. It looks like we may make it through November with no shovelable snow ... but then again ... I may have just jinxed us!

So here we are ... starting the last week of November ... Thanksgiving week! We are having the family Thanksgiving Dinner and Football Watching get together here at the Maineiacs in Motion Summer Cottage this year. Nothing fancy planned ... roasted turkey, a smoked turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, deviled eggs, veggie platter, rolls, stuffing, cranberry sauce, olives, apple pie, pumpkin pie ... and probably more. I figure the leftovers will last us into December easily.

Since time has marched on ... we also find ourselves at day 44 and a-wake-up before we start up WTT and head south to become “Climate Refugees.” According to the media reporting I have been seeing, the term Climate Refugees will be getting a lot of play in the future ... and it dawned on me that it fits us Maineiacs pretty well. And besides ... the term “snowbird” is just old fashioned. Being a Climate Refugee is so much cooler. Now we can join the ranks of the victimized and seek justice! It feels so good to be “WOKE.”

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Learning Lessons

Some days things just don’t work according to MY plan. Actually, that might apply to most days ... but some days are worse than others.

So there I was on Friday - getting my day’s projects started early in the morning and “things” were pretty much going as planned. The morning project was to get the lawn tractor out and “mow” my leaves into the bagger attachment. The project started out pretty normal as I uncovered the tractor, started it up, backed it up several feet, engaged the mower blades, and then started to move forward. The process was going pretty normal for about 5 feet when I heard a loud bang followed by the engine stopping. “Hmmm” I said ... “that don’t sound right! I wonder if I ran over something.” Or something to that effect. Not seeing anything obviously wrong I tried to re-start the engine. The starter engaged like normal but the engine turned over really fast and way to easy. It was about here that I knew this was not good! It took me about 30 seconds of troubleshooting to figure out that the engine’s piston was no longer connected to it’s crankshaft and that the connecting rod had undergone a rapid energetic disassembly ... that’s ex-Nuclear Operator language for “it broke!”

With Peggy’s assistance I was able to push the tractor into the storage shed and I began a more detailed investigation. It took me about 30 minutes to remove the engine cowling, then the engine’s cylinder head, and then the piston. For you less than experienced mechanics out there ... if you can remove the piston of a standard internal combustion engine at this point of engine disassembly something is terribly wrong! Most of the connecting rod came out with the piston and lots of little pieces came out as well.

At this point I could view the connecting rod’s correct point of attachment on the crankshaft And it didn’t look in much better shape than the connecting rod. This was not going to be a quick fix. I also checked the engine oil level and determined quite quickly that I had found the root cause of the problem ... a significant lack of lubrication caused by inadequate oil quantity. Actually ... the root cause was inadequate checking of oil level by the operator! Apparently this engine had been burning its lubricating oil internally for some time ... and checking the oil back in June was not often enough!

After kicking myself for my negligence I settled back into recovery mode. How do I recover from this little problem? I could pick up the leaves the old fashion way, and I did with lots of help from my wonderful wife ... but I certainly didn’t want to continue that process for the rest of leaf season. I could remove and rebuild the engine ... but that could take several weeks and an unknown amount of money. I could buy a new engine ... but that would cost about 1/3 the cost of a whole new lawn tractor ... and again several weeks to obtain an engine and then install the new one. What path do I take?

As it turns out I took the most expensive and least logical path. I spent a few hours shopping and then purchased a new lawn tractor - complete with new bagging system since my existing system wouldn’t work on the new machine. But wait ... I wasn’t done yet!

Since the “old” tractor was still in very good condition except for the broken engine ... and since I couldn’t see just throwing it away ... I decided to fix it as well.

Yesterday morning I removed the failed engine and took it into the basement for disassembly and further evaluation - hoping that much of it could be saved. Unfortunately the crankshaft was found beyond repair which made rebuilding the old engine about as costly as buying a new one. A little time on Amazon.com later and a new replacement engine was on order with an estimated delivery date of one week. Isn’t technology wonderful? But this story gets even better.

I got a message from UPS last night telling me that my order would be delivered tomorrow (Today!!). And it was ... from order to delivery in just about 24 hours ... and this purchase didn’t even qualify for Amazon “Prime.” 

So the good news / bad news is that I should have the “old” lawn tractor back in service with a new engine tomorrow (less than 1 week from failure). In retrospect ... I’d have been better off economically by just replacing the engine right from the start. But then I wouldn’t have this story to tell you, I wouldn’t have been reminded that it really does make good sense to check engine oil levels more frequently on these small engines, and I wouldn’t have been reminded that sometimes haste does lead to waste.

I know ... I’ll teach Peggy how to operate one of the tractors and we can have that job done in half the time!

And then I’ll learn a new lesson.

Musings From Maine - Fall 2019

Autumn is in full swing here in Maine. The leaves are falling daily, the trees are about half naked, and my lawn tractor has already been used as a leaf vacuum twice with one more workout scheduled for tomorrow.

Other signs include ... the Patriots are winning, the Celtics started their season yesterday, our Motorhome is back in storage, the Chevelle is in its storage spot as are two of my restored vintage motorcycles ... and Halloween is just around the corner.

We haven’t received a hard freeze yet but I suspect that time is not far off. I hope it holds off for a few more days until I get the outdoor hoses drained and put away!

Peggy and I had a fun get-a-way day on our Anniversary earlier this month. We took a leisurely 200 mile drive up the Maine coast to the small town of Machias, did a little sightseeing along the coast, had some great food at a couple of Maine’s iconic small coastal restaurants (Moody’s Diner in Waldoboro and Helen’s Restaurant in Machias) and then came home the next day using a more inland route on a nice sunny day with just about peak fall foliage to view. Even us retired folk need a get-a-way day now and again to just enjoy our surroundings ... and each other!

Along with accomplishing my annual fall chore of getting my vehicle fleet prepared for winter I also removed the hood from my 1965 Chevelle and the painted pieces from my 1966 Yamaha Big Bear so they can be provided to my “Paint Guy” for some beautification work over the next few months. Glen always does a great job so I’m looking forward to seeing how these parts come out! Glen already has the hood and the Yamaha parts will follow as soon as I complete some prep work.

So that’s all behind us ... what’s ahead? If its almost November then our priorities will shift to staying warm, watching kids and grandkids grow up, enjoying family over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, and then planning and executing our escape from winters grip on the northeastern US.

The Winnebago has had her fluids and filters changed, she is fueled up, she has her new awnings installed, and her solar panel is keeping her batteries charged. So she sits ready to be loaded and pointed south. My Chevy Colorado has completed all its modifications necessary to be towed behind Winne and the test tow went well. All we need now is some cooperative weather during that first week of 2020!

I suspect most of you have been doing pretty much the same as us over these past many weeks ... living life and doing what you can to pursue happiness whenever and however you can. Hopefully you have spent very little time paying much attention to the childish behavior being displayed by our “leaders” in Washington, DC. I wonder if they understand that although we care what they actually accomplish while they represent us - we care little for the pettiness and vitriol they seem to require while they get done what little they do manage to complete. I probably spend too much of my time paying attention to what they are up to ... and I probably wont stop since I’m a bit stubborn ... but even I find myself needing to turn away and just ignore their noise. I know ... many of you out there have been more successful at “ignoring the noise“ than I for a long time. I just hope we all continue to hear and understand the message while ignoring the noise.

In the meantime ... we will do our best to enjoy what can be enjoyed as we finish off autumn and welcome winter when it comes ... and then follow the warmth of the sun as fast as we can!

75 and A-Wake-Up.