“Forbin, There is another system”

For a number of months I have been working towards a different blogging setup that should make it a little easier for folks with specific interests to just follow those parts that they like.

I know that not everyone is interested in everything I write. Heck, I am not always interested in all of it at one time, either.  Plus, I wanted the more technical material to be a little easier to find for reference purposes.  Right now, a post for a single day may have some stuff about travel, a little work I did on a PC, a new problem that has cropped up on the RV, etc.  This does give a sense of how my day went but it is almost useless for reference when I want to link back to a technical item that is buried in a journaling blog of the day.

I had the idea that on a main blog entry page, I could have the latest 1 or 2 posts from each of several other topically selected sub-blogs of mine.  Anyone could just view that page to see what has been updated and go directly to a specific topic or blog. This is a little like blog readers do across a set of blogs but I like the idea of having a focus point that provides a jumping off place to start.

 So, Ta-Da!

You can click the picture or just go to: https://sites.google.com/a/webdoms.com/rvbudds/ to access the new site.

I wanted the individual sub blogs to maintain their own RSS feeds and comments because I know that some people are only interested in one topic, like what travel  related content I may post. This way, any given topical area can be separately subscribed to by anyone and they don’t even have to see the headings on any of my other blog areas if they don’t want to.

If you are interested in PC technical stuff then you can subscribe to just that one.

 

 

Or if RV Housekeeping and organization tips interests you I have a topical blog for you to enjoy (I hope).

Still, there is nothing earthshakingly different for daily readers but I am hoping that this new format will make the content more aligned with your interests.

I will maintain some blogging on this site, too, until I am sure the new format is going to work like I want. Please comment here or there and let me know what you think, how you like (or don’t like) the new site and make suggestions.  I really want to kick this up a notch and I don’t have Emeril in my back pocket to give a good BAM!

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Budd

First day of Hurricane Season

Official or not does not much matter when it is 96 degrees and 72% humidity with no breezes and no ocean to cool one off.

Sure seems like the tropics are here, today, checking us out for some later hurricane activity…. Like RVers checking out campgrounds for future visits.

No an outside day, for sure so I turned to inside tasks like, finding the power brick for my printer. As usual, I stumbled across it up in cool, breezy West Virginia (See, I can change my mind) and put it in a “special” place so I would have it readily available. I think my special place was pitched out because I can’t find it anywhere!

Irked!

So other stuff is trying to fit the oak door panels from the Norcold RV refrigerator onto the household refrigerator we replaced it with.  Got to do something about that great white whale sitting in the middle of DaKotR. It is absolutely wonderful, functionally, but aesthetically…. not so much.

Also, I have still not heard from Progressive about my A/C that was damaged in the Tornado in Smithfield, NC on 4/16 so I guess I am going to have to get pushy with them.

Dr. visit #1 went fine, today, Dr. visit #2 is tomorrow but I don’t expect any surprises other than some med changes.  We will see.

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Followup on the Household Refrigerator installation:

At the beginning of the year, we replaced our defunct Norcold LM1200 12cu ft. RV refrigerator with a standard 22 cu foot Household refrigerator.  It was pretty much a test to see if we could work with it instead of a gas/elec  RV refrigerator so we just used an older extra refrigerator we kept in the basement for summer water melons and beer.

In the past 6 months of use, it has never been a problem for us and even when we have been traveling unplugged for 9 hours at a time the freezer still stayed below 15 degrees.  We are very happy with the household refer and especially with the much larger capacity and far better internal layout and flexibility it has over any RV refer we have seen.

Since this was a test, we left some of the labor to finish off the installation until we were sure we were going to like it and that it would be a completely satisfactory solution, which it is.  One of the things left to do was to seal off the outside venting that was there for the RV refrigerator.  Although I wrapped each vent door in a trash bag and pinned it shut, it looked odd and the winds on the highway shredded them pretty quickly. With them unsealed it has been like living with a window open all the time so before summer gets really hot I needed to finish this off.

The main thing I was concerned about was air infiltration. A secondary concern was just plain insulation which is problematic on the bottom vent because there is only 1” behind the refer and the air being exhausted when the refer is running needs to be able to circulate back into the interior of the RV or the compressor will overheat and it won’t cool very well.

The upper vent door was no problem and I fully insulated it with part of a bat of pink fiberglass insulation glued over the 4 mil plastic film I first glued to the backside of the door to seal out all airflow through it.

I think that this will work fine for the summer.  I may revisit this later, to see just how well it is actually sealed but short of pulling the refrigerator and sealing the hole from inside the RV I don’t see much chance of doing it any better.

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Innovation–A Key to successful Full-timing?

Let’s face it. Going from 2400+sq ft of house with a basement, garage, closets and such into a 400sq ft “everything” means that when you have a problem you need to be MacGiver.

Nick Russell has his Great White (Greg) and Geeks on Tour on his speed dial. These are his resources AFTER Terry the Terrific!

Others depend a lot on…. others when struggles pop up. However, just as in a stationary life, seeing deeper into what surrounds you can empower your creativity and return some real satisfaction when you solve a problem with little more than what is at hand.

For instance, this campsite at Pipestem State Resort Park in WV, really does not have a “patio” area. Sure, there is a fire pit that you can sit cross-legged at on the high side and stand on the low side with it at chest height.

But it is impossible to put the picnic table anywhere but on the pavement (where the RV is) or in the street and have it level enough that the salt shaker will remain upright.

This dropoff also made for a really big “last step” coming out of the RV.

My solution:

Turn the picnic table into a mini patio and steps.

Looks a little scary but it is so solid that Merrily, Katie and I were dancing on it.

Once I got it leveled up I jack-strapped it tightly into the fold out RV steps and not only does it make it much easier doing the in-out thing but it is dead level for actually sitting down and eating (if it weren’t that we are parked under the caterpillar Oak hotel.) It also makes a great stand up work bench at the left end and that was a big help with all the outside stuff I have been doing.

See, innovation is not hard. One just needs to be open to the opportunities that are waiting to be used.

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A wunnerful… a wunnerful!

Beautiful day. Nice temps, nice breezes, no rain, no mosquitoes and we are parked under the Caterpillar Oak hotel. I have seen some bad caterpillar droppings from the oak in front of the house in Raleigh but this puppy has some prodigious cata-poop coming down out of it.

But that did not deter my attitude, today.  I tackled a few more long deferred tasks, like patching the crack in the skin of DakotR at the bottom front corner of the bedroom slideout opening.  It has been there since we bought it and I have made lame attempts to fix it a couple of times but never really did more than gush some goo onto it.

This time, I gouged out the gunk inside, widened and straightened the edges out and generally cleaned all around, all around before patching.

I used some Dyco 20/20 caulk and filled the bugger. I then patched over that with a piece of Eternabond Seam sealing tape.

That should hold it!

Another put off too long job was to replace the main awning rear arm lock.  The original one never had a locked position. It just was pushed into place and would gradually work its way open in route. Last year I had bought a couple of new awning locks and managed to get the front one replace (cause it broke off) but never got around to it.  Actually, I never seemed to be able to get myself, my drill and drill bits, my pop rivet tool and the new lock all together at the same time.  It seems that one or another of these items managed to go into hiding.

I got them altogether today, though, and replaced the old one. One problem with the non-locking type is that it would not stay open and out of the way while trying to stow the awning and would jam between the main support and the spreader bar behind it, usually just as the awning was rolling in its last foot or so.

I also tackled the tar and gunk thrown up onto the lower front panel of the 5th wheel (I just gotta get some mud flaps on those fenders).  The best combination I came up with was Turtle Wax Bug and Tar remover followed by a Marine black streak remover… now I just have to do the other 3/4s of that area.

The water pressure here is so high that without a pressure regulator it causes the filtered water faucet in the kitchen to drip constantly. I had a nice Watts Home pressure regulator which gave good flow but installed it in the house several years ago due to very high street main pressures. I just have to replace it as these RV pressure regulators just throttle back the water flow so much that a good shower is impossible.

It’s another thing to “pick up” when we get back to Raleigh. the list is getting pretty long right now even though we only plan to be in port for a couple of weeks.

I hope the rains hold off tomorrow, too, while I have the drive and clarity to work on some of this deferred maintenance stuff.

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Pipestem West Virginia

West Virginia has some very upscale state parks that they call Resort Parks.  Pipestem State Resort Park is about 15 miles east of Beckley and can be reached via state road 20. 

The highways, other than Interstate, are the usual narrow, tight turns up/down/all-around roads one finds in the eastern mountains of NC, GA, VA, WV, TN, etc… you get the picture.  WV roads at this time, might be in worse shape, maintenance wise, than some of these other states.

The RV sites in this campground are pretty nice with paved streets and drives but gravel patios. They are also small. Site 24 is the only one that we could get into, comfortably. There were a few others that we could have gotten into with a struggle and then park the truck elsewhere but most of them, including 24, were not very level.

I think the same crew did these sites that do the WV roads and don’t believe in level as being important. High water pressure >100 psi, makes a pressure regulator advisable and they have a sign in the office to that effect.

WE came here in heavy to light rains all day and that was day before yesterday. It is still “misting” with an occasional downpour.

A real disadvantage to traveling up these small WV state roads in this kind of weather is the ongoing problem of falling rocks. Yesterday, we drove into Hinton in the Smart which is only about 10 miles east but there were plenty of places that rocks of various sizes were on or on the edge of the road and plenty of rock pieces still scattered on the roadway.

Of all of the advantages of the Smart Car that we tout, ground clearance is not one of them. With a full tank and 2 people, 3” of clearance in the middle is only a dream so always go around stuff on the road, never just span it and expect it to not hit because it probably will hit something underneath.

Luckily, no damage but could have been bad.

We are planning to stay here until next Monday before heading back towards Raleigh for some appointments. WV parks have a NO REFUND policy so be sure you are going to stay for what you pay cause you won’t get any of it back no matter what.

Of the several WV State Resort parks, Pipestem was the only one that even had much RV camping available. These parks tend to cater to semi-camping in lodges or tenting up to pop-ups but I figure that the roads will probably deter most folks with anything bigger, from coming here.  Guess that says too much about me.

For all the hype about the wonderful views in WV, that is old print. Everywhere we have been, the views from the roads are obscured by trees. Maybe in the dead of winter one can see fairly well but then, what would there be to see.  So far, not that impressed with WV.

On, BTW, the toll road (I-77) charged us $9.50 per toll station going North to Charleston. That was $28.50 total. Coming back down it, we found at the last toll booth that Recreational vehicles are charged a flat $3.50.  Of course, there were no signs posted anywhere other than for the $2 per car rate. The rest was assumed to be per axle and I have 6 by their count.  Another WV “gotcha”. Not a happy camper in WV.

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Going nowhere… yet.

We were due to leave Rippling Waters CG today but.. we just decided that we would rather not… so we didn’t.

 

Weather has been quite comfortable and a hint of moisture in the air… and on everything else but no actual rain which is fine by me.

We will likely leave tomorrow and head for PipeStem State Resort park.. but not if we are not going to be able to get the Dancing With The Stars Results show, there, tomorrow night.

I managed to do a little fishing (catch and release, of course).  First time I have actually gotten a line wet in a few years even though I always have my rig with me… I guess I am even more relaxed, here, than I have been in a very long time, so that’s a good thing.

We will see where tomorrow takes us.

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