05-17-11

Patti and I went up to IC on Friday. The weather started out clear and warm.

We got to the cabin around 2:45.

The first job I had to do, after unloading the van, was to hook up the stove. This time I had all the parts for the job. I had to drill a hole in the back wall for the gas line so I grabbed the cordless drill, installed a 7/8 spade bit in the drill and started drilling the hole. The bit made it about half way through the 1” board when the battery died. “No problem, “ I thought, “I have an extra battery”. I went to the van, got the spare battery, plugged it into the drill and tried again. The spare battery was also dead.

“@#%”

“No problem, I have a generator and an AC drill motor. I’ll just get the generator out of the van and use it to run the drill and charge the batteries”.

I unloaded the generator and started filling it with fuel. As I was pouring the gas into the tank I noticed a stream of fuel running from the “Fuel Cock” onto the ground. I leaned the Generator against some wood so that the fuel cock was up and took the fuel cock apart to see if there was anything I could do to fix it.

Inside, there’s a gasket with four holes in it that align with four ports

and an O-ring that is supposed to seal the cock.

I tried turning the four hole-er over and putting some oil on the O-ring but when I put it all back together the fuel still ran out.

“Okay” I thought. “I have a 1,000 watt inverter in the van, I’ll just start up the van and use that to power the drill'”. I knew that the battery that is connected to the inverter is old and week therefore I started up the van so that the battery could get some help from the alternator. I turned on the inverter with nothing plugged into it and instantly it went to the “Fault” position. The red light came on and the warning buzzer shrieked. I turned the inverter and the engine off, then I hooked up a fresh battery to the inverter with the same result.

Ok, so now I have a hole drilled halfway through the wall, none of my power systems are working, I want to get the stove working, now what do I do.

Ahah!! The cabin isn’t called the Tool Shed for nothing. Some of the decorations are old hand tools and it just happens that there is an old “Brace” hanging from a beam above the wood stove.

I retrieved the Brace and inserted the bit into the collet. Fortunately the bit that I was using had a hexagonal shaft so there was enough grip to hold the bit in place and turn it.

I got the hole drilled and the stove hooked up. It works just great.

All the jobs that I had planned to do this weekend require electrical power, it was obvious that I wasn’t meant to do any work on this trip. “Bummer”

Patti and I spent the weekend just enjoyed the cabin and the nice weather. We sat in the sun, talked, played cards and I did some R & D on some of the projects that are coming up.

The fire wood stack was getting low so we cut up a few down Tan Oaks. I need to get serious about cutting firewood for the Fall/winter season.

We took a walk up the road and saw a couple of Alligator Lizards.

one appeared to have an injured left arm. You can see in this video that it is acting strange.

Between the left shoulder and the neck you can see a large semi healed gash.

We also found a “Red Sided Guarder Snake”

and a “Millipede”

Unfortunately. the snake was dead. I think we must have driven over it on the way into the cabin.

The woods here are very dense but occasionally you get a nice view.

The wild Iris’ are blooming

in some spots they line the road .

We picked some Iris’ and Patti made a nice bouquet. When we got back to the “tool shed” she put the flowers in an old water pitcher and set it on top of the stove.

Patti got the chance to get some macro shots of these tiny flowers.

It started raining Saturday night and rained hard all night. It rained all day Sunday and at one point it dropped a bunch of pee sized hail.

We left for home around 2:00.

I talked to Felice last evening and she said that she will not have to undergo the Chemo treatments since there aren’t any drugs that would be effective in her case and the ones that they do have that might do something would likely do more harm than good. Instead they are taking the wait and watch approach. She is clear of cancer at this point and she will be tested every few months so that if the disease returns they will catch it early. That is as good as we can get for now so we will have to just keep our fingers crossed.

05-11-11

Well there isn’t much going on around here lately.

I am still working on the van. The steering is all adjusted and I built an extension for the oil filler. Now, I am waiting for the new shocks to be delivered. This will be the third try on the shocks.

Patti has been planting flowers in the front of the house. She planted Dahlia's and Icelandic Poppies.

They look pretty nice eh!

Yesterday we took Felice to SF for a follow up with the surgeon. The news was good. They got all the cancer and found nothing in the lymph nodes. Now she will have to undergo some chemo for a month or so. 

Tomorrow, Patti and I are going up to Indian creek for a few days.

Maybe next week I will have more pictures and something of interest to share.

05-05-11

The shock absorbers that I ordered for the van came in and when I tried to install them, they wouldn’t fit so I returned them yesterday and ordered new ones.

When I got back to the house Patti mentioned that I hadn’t done any Kayaking since we got home. So since I couldn’t do the job that I planned for today, I called my friend Bob to see if he was into yaking. Of course I should have known that Bob is always ready to kayak.

I got to Bob’s around 12:30 and we were on the river by 1:30. it was a very pleasant day

with a slight breeze and temperatures in the high 70’s. We launched at Monte Rio and went down stream a few of miles. The river was kind of quiet with very little wildlife. We did see a couple of Blue Herons,

We stopped for lunch on a small beach, then headed back up stream.

We noticed a large Osprey nest in a dead snag.

And at one of the big holes we saw a lot of fish jumping. In a short time we discovered what was causing them to try and get out of the water. A pair of hunting seals was cruising the depths.

 

We passed a house with a new solar array. I don’t know how they are going to do any maintenance on the panels as they are stuck right together. How are they going to clean them?

As we paddled back up stream we saw a couple of turtles but they slid into the water just as I took the shot. 

It was a good day on the river. I am glad that I finally took the time to go for a paddle.

04-30-11

Wow! it has been around 10 days since the last time I posted anything so let’s see what have we been doing.

We took a ride in the hills around Santa Rosa but had trouble getting pictures because there aren’t many places to pull off the roads to park.

Here are a couple pictures.

and a short video;

My youngest daughter “Felice” has had her surgery and the doctor said that they didn’t find any bad stuff in side her. Now we have to wait for the lab reports. She was discharged from the hospital yesterday so we went to SF to pick her up.  She is now recuperating at a friends house and is doing good.

On Tuesday we went to our grandson Harvey’s track meet. To me, a track meet is about as exciting as watching grass grow but we were there for Harvey. He won two of his four events, the hundred yard dash and the high jump.

Harvey is on the left.

 

I cleaned up and painted the stove that Mike gave me for the cabin and took it up to Indian Creek on Wednesday. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera so there are no pictures of the stove in place. The fitting on the hose that I was planning to use for the stove had a left hand thread so I couldn’t connect it to the stove. I will have to get a different hose and regulator. I haven’t found the right knobs for it yet. The ones that are on there are not correct.

I started taking apart “Pigpen” (my van) to rebuild the front end. As it turns out all the noise that I was getting from the front was being caused by the shocks so I don’t have to replace the ball Joints. I ordered the shocks yesterday and they should be in by Monday.

 

I am going to take apart the steering box next, to check for wear. I am hoping that it is okay because I don’t think I could find a new one.  

04-20-11

Sunday.

We left Quartzsite around 11:00

and made it to the AVI Casino near Laughlin, Nevada with no problem. We got there around 1:00. The Casino has a shuttle to the RV park so we went to lunch at the casino. I left Patti at the casino and she came back at 5:30 only $20 down. Not bad!!

With AAA discount the park rent is only $21.50 per night. 

I'm using the parks  free wifi It is a little slow 5 to 9 mbps but Verizon wireless doesn't work at all here. I might try it later tonight.

Monday

We left the AVI casino RV park around 9:30 and drove to Kettleman City where we stopped for dinner at Mikes Road House Café. Patti said that her hamburger was good. I had a hot roast beef sandwich that was unremarkable.

It was windy as hell all the way from AVI almost to Bakersfield.

Coming over the Tehachapi's we were being blown all over the road. I was doing a maximum of 55 mph and I had a death grip on the steering wheel.

The wind died just before we got to Bakersfield and the rest of the drive wasn't bad.

We stopped for the night at the "Sommerville Almond Tree" RV park, on the west side of I-5 at the Jayne Ave exit.

Tuesday

The ride from Jayne Ave was uneventful and we arrived home at 2:00.

I got an email from Becky & Dennis with pictures of Roy’s newest camera setup.

They went out to the shaft today. Apparently the system worked and they got some good footage. I hope Roy can send me a copy of the movie so I can try to show some of it to you.

Wednesday

I woke up to the sound of rain. I miss Arizona. 

04-16-11

On Thursday we went back to the deep shaft to try the camera again.

Roy redesigned the setup with some different lights and a rack from a convection oven as a base. It kind of looks like a flying saucer.

We slowly lowered the system into the hole until it settled on the bottom of the shaft.

When we retrieved it

we connected the camera to my mini laptop.

The video was to dark to see anything so we added two multi led head lamps to the rig and sent it down the hole again. This time we didn’t try the laptop because the sunlight was so bright that it was hard to see the screen. After we got home Roy hooked the camera to his TV and watched the video, it was dark all the way down until almost the bottom where the lights finally found something to illuminate. Roy is going to try again on Tuesday.

While we were playing with the camera Becky noticed a bird nest on one of the beams in the shaft.

 

The wind was blowing hard and was pretty cold so we left the shaft to find someplace out of the wind to have lunch. As usual that turned out to be a wash.

After lunch we drove around for a while, over the low hills, through some deep gullies and up a couple of narrow washes.

Along the way we stopped to check out a tunnel that we had passed several times in the trips out to this area. The tunnel was a little disappointing as it only went about 100 feet into the hill.

On the home front we got some more pictures of the birds that come to visit the pond

and the flowers.

Well, our Arizona adventure is almost at an end. It has been another great winter down here. We had a lot of fun and will miss all our friends until we see them again next season.  We will leave here  tomorrow (Sunday) for California. It will take us about two and a half days to get home.

My youngest daughter is undergoing major surgery on the 21rd and we want to be there for her.

We have to get a new roof put on the Motor-home in May.

In June we will be going to Redmond Oregon for our granddaughter’s graduation from high school.

We aren’t sure what we will be doing after that. Whether we will be doing a lot of traveling or not depends on the price of fuel.

There is plenty for me to do at home this summer.

I have to rebuild the front end on my van “Pigpen” and I still have a bunch of work to do on the cabin at Indian Creek. I am looking forward to getting back in the redwoods.

It will all be on the blog so check back from time to time.