Month: May 2013

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Sunshine From Iowa

Reader P.J. and her hubby just left after spending the afternoon together. They treated me to one last meal at Applebee’s (thank you!!!) and then came down to the campground to get a tour of Miranda. I have given so many tours of Miranda this winter. I haven’t felt that comfortable showing my home before.

It’s been a full year since we last saw each other, so it was good to catch up. A lot has changed!

P.J. showed me her beautiful scrapbooking project. This is a craft that really appeals to me as it is very textured and visually appealing, but I obviously don’t have the space for such a hobby. Looking through the pages filled with little mementos of the day, I realised that my blog is rather like a digital scrapbook.

They brought good weather with them: it is warmish and almost sunny out now!!!

Neelix was also super happy to have company; he appears to be petted out. 🙂

I’m really hoping to make it to Hankinson tomorrow, but it will depend on the wind more than anything else. If it’s smooth sailing with no muscling needed, it should be a fairly easy drive easily split into morning and afternoon sessions. Otherwise, I will only get about halfway, to Sioux Fallsish. But the drive from Hankinson to Minot is almost as long, so I’d really rather push hard and stay two nights at the casino and then just drive hard for a few days.

I’ve been monitoring the weather at my property and they hit not just the teens today, but the high teens, and it looks like sun and warm to hot weather for the rest of the week!!!! If this keeps up, I am going to feel comfortable heading straight there instead of dropping Miranda somewhere and scouting ahead with the toad.

It was so good to have company today. I probably won’t have any more real social engagements until I get to Donna and Ken’s in June.

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A Cold Nebraska Morning

Last night was perfect hibernating, I mean sleeping, conditions. I got nine straight hours. WOW!

I had a bit of a hard time finding the movie theatre in Columbus yesterday. I saw the sign by the road telling me I was in the general vicinity of it but could not find the building. I circled around the plaza for a bit until I saw some teenage boys holding soft drinks and popcorn bags come out of unmarked doors to what looked like a strip mall. I parked and walked through those doors to find a tiny mall with a few stores. I had to run a craft fair/Tupperware party gauntlet before I finally found the cinema.

It was your typical small town cinema, a couple of theatres and reasonable enough prices to make popcorn a treat, not a ridiculous indulgence. I ended up going for the 3D showing, but I won’t be doing that again. I had seen ‘Brave’ in 3D and was totally immersed, but with Iron Man 3, all I really got from the 3D glasses was blurriness at the periphery of my vision. Otherwise, I had a fun time as the movie is hilarious and makes up for the second one. I’m glad I saw ‘The Avengers’ in Hampton Roads, otherwise Iron Man 3 would have made almost no sense.

I got in and made my first real meal at home in AGES (pork chops, broccoli, rice) and then I settled down to watch another movie.

It’s another slow morning, but I’ll be doing a good cleaning blitz before I head out to meet P.J. I haven’t been spending much time at home and it shows.

When I’m just passing through an area like this for a night or two and don’t need my full office set up, I usually hang out in the living room and leave the office packed. I really don’t spend enough time in here when I’m parked long-term and I don’t know why. The arm chair is so much more comfortable for watching a movie than is the bed in the back of the study.

L gave me a 19″ TV to use for watching movies or as a bigger screen for my laptop because the tuner went out on it and it’s no good to use as a TV (a case of one person’s trash taking up storage room in the garage being someone else’s useful treasure). I was going to mount it in the study, but now I think I would be better off doing so in the living room to motivate me to use this space more. That will cut down on the ‘where’s your TV?!” comments that I get from most folks visiting the rig. 🙂 I do need to get an adapter for it as Macbook Pros don’t have an HDMI port, and the older ones don’t carry audio from their mini display port, so I need some sort of audio cable, too.

One way that I have made the living room more comfortable is that I got rid of one of the two night tables I had bought as storage for the living room and have FINALLY found the perfect place for the remaining one.

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This way, I get a cat perch and I still have a surface on which to put a cup (that black surface pushes back into the night table). I used to have it laid out so the short side was against the wall, which meant the ottoman was blocked and I couldn’t stretch my legs. Neelix’s cushion (and it’s always been his and purchased expressly for him, Tabitha never had any use for such luxuries) moves around depending on where I am in the rig. So that night table is usually clear to receive bags of groceries or whatever else is coming into the RV.

Some time ago, while looking for something completely unrelated, I found my night stand on Amazon! I paid $10 for two. Amazon is selling them for $125 EACH!!! And, yes, it’s EXACTLY the same thing! If you look at the reviews, there is another RVing using this same unit since it matches standard RV ‘golden’ or ‘medium’ oak cabinetry perfectly.

Time to turn the furnace back on and get started with my day!

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Stromsburg to Columbus (both NE)

Ah, this is the kind of travel day that would be normal for me if I was an American and could just travel at a leisurely pace all the time.

After an incredibly lazy morning, I got packing just before noon, when the temps hit +5C and the wind had died down a little. It was chilly, but tolerable, for dumping and hooking up the toad.

I pulled out at about 12:05 and drove to Shelby, where I had identified through Google Maps a gas station that would be an easier in and out than the ones I’d pass before. I took on 47 gallons of gas, so I was definitely running on fumes! That put my MPG for the trip from Wichita at 5.8. OUCH!!!

My GPS is useless for finding campgrounds, so I just left it on map to show me upcoming roads, and I navigated with a Post-It that indicated my turns. I’m glad I only had an hour to drive because it was incredibly windy and I could only move at a snail’s pace. The only good thing about driving in such conditions is that my biceps get quite a workout.

I had absolutely no trouble finding the Loup Park campground. I haven’t quite figured out this place. It’s carved into a hill and power posts appear to be scattered willy nilly. I’m much too long for any of the obvious sites, so I parallel parked along a secondary loop. If it was summer and busy, I would have likely tried somewhere else as I feel a little in the way, even though the road is clear, but for two nights in early May, I am fine. Getting myself leveled was a bit of work, but I finally managed it. Oh, I just saw the sheriff go by and he ignored me, so I’m obviously not blocking anyone.

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I need to show off my latest MAJOR, life-changing improvement to my RV. TAH-DAH!

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The cubbies traveled that way, rather than turned to the wall to keep the drawers from moving. I can do that now because the drawers are finally secured! It was one of my neighbours at Hidden Valley who came up with the solution in mere seconds when everyone else had failed!

The answer was… Velcro!

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The beige blobs are dried Gorilla glue that I used to adhere the Velcro to the surfaces. I knew that the stuff really expands, so I put just a drop, but it was still too much. In other words, I had to pry my drawers open once everything was dry. Go easy on the Gorilla glue, folks!

I’m off to find the movie theatre. I just realised it’s Saturday afternoon, so I’d better arrive early. There is a 3D showing at 3:30 and a 2D one at 4:00, so I should be able to squeeze into one or the other. I can’t believe I saw Iron Man 2 in Dawson City!

And finally, OMG IT’S %%@#$%&@)( COLD HERE!

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Not a Great Day To Move

Dang, I really should have packed up and moved yesterday, even though I was insanely busy. 🙁 It’s been one of those mornings where I cranked up the furnace, went back to bed, and wished I could have stayed there all day.

With the wind chill, it feels like it’s below freezing out there. I’ll give it another couple of hours and then head out.

I was going to take on water, but have decided not to at this point to lighten the rig a little, something I have never felt I needed to do. I’m also going to dump the tanks for the same reason, although a good rinse of the black one will have to wait until Hankinson. I am keeping a few jugs of potable water on board for cleaning up.

I’m also going to wait as long as possible to get gas, again to reduce the load. It’s windy out there! 🙁

I’d like to be settled in Columbus by 3:00 p.m.ish so that I can catch a 4:00 p.m showing of Iron Man 3, which would let me get home early enough to make a good dinner as I need to start bringing down some of my stores.

I checked the rules for going back into Canada and I don’t think I will have any issues with anything on board (like pork chops and ham), but I am going to keep everything in original packages. Citrus is always tricky, so last night I juiced the rest of a big bag ‘o limes into some pretty dang tasty limeade.

It’s boggling that it’s May 4th and the weather is still like this, with no end in sight. Last year, spring sprung and stuck on April 23rd!

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Fridge on 120V Power Update

Since leaving the beach, I had problems with my fridge set to the AC (shore/120V power), both on 30A at an RV park and 15A in a driveway.

I was really short on propane in Shawnee and was growing weary of just how quickly I go through the gas when the fridge is running off it, so I decided it was time to do something about it.

I started by going back over some of my electrical posts from the beach because I had a niggle at the back of my mind. And then I found my post about the salt water corrosion on my battery terminals.

Doh. I went out and cleaned the fridge terminals and connections with a scrubbie pad and an eraser, then turned the fridge on to shore power. No problem in Shawnee on 30A. And no problem in Wichita on 15A. My fridge is also running colder on a lower setting than it was before.

Salt water is evil! 🙂