Tag: Travel

Day 2353

Wednesday March 13th 2024

Dear Journal:

Well 6:46 has now become what I classify as sleeping in, at least for me, I was rousted out of bed by Mister Sam this morning, he wanted the bedroom window shade up so he could watch the birds, bunnies, and chipmunks. He had already had his morning treats thanks to Miss Laurie who was up and had the coffee perking when I was awoken from my sleep. Oh well it is light out and the sun will peak over the mountain any moment, so I guess it is time that I was up. The smell of the perking coffee almost makes it seem like a good time to be up and a few moments latter after that first sip of coffee, my whole world seems to make much more sense.

A little television this morning as we enjoy our coffee and see that the folks up in Ontario are getting some spring weather this morning, We just hope it is going to be an early spring and that the nice weather is still there when we arrive in a month or so. Miss Laurie prepared an omelet this morning for breakfast, we will try and connect with some friends today, but as of yet have not heard from anyone. I’m going to hike around the Arboretum this morning, it has been a while since my last walk, and it is always a good idea to know where the best spots are for the weekend crowds, and I have not been as mobile as I would like to be this year, but I’m feeling good this morning.

Spring has obviously hit the Arizona desert as well as we have roses budding, cactus and yuccas blooming along with a splattering of spring flowers, the cotton wood trees in the Queen creek canyon are in full leaf and we have had enough rain that even the Ocotillo have leaves. A walk in the Arboretum shows that this warm weather has got everything bursting to life. Ayer lake is almost full, the area looks so much better now as the barriers have been removed and the water foul appear to be making this home. The Arboretum is busy today, not weekend busy but too busy for me to enjoy my walk, there were people in all of my favorite spots, and with spring break there was too much noise to see much wildlife, although there was a vermillion flycatcher enjoying some insects around Ayer lake, too far away for my iPhone to capture but great to observe anyway.

Well after my walk I settled into my recliner and started a new book this morning, I’m still experiencing problems with the Libby App and the Hamilton Library, I have been able to log in again and have got a few books but for some reason the reciprocity with other libraries is no longer in place, making it difficult to get some of the books that I want in the order that I want them. I have been reading a number of different serries and it just is nice to read them in the correct order, but now that I only have the one library to draw from I have a few issues getting the next volumes. I’m not sure what the problem is but I’m assuming it still has something to do with the Hamilton City hall hack last month.

After reading and sneaking a short nap while enjoying some lap time from Mister Sam, I figured it was time to get back to work on todays blog. I did not write one yesterday as I just worked around the coach while Miss Laurie went on a rock hounding adventure, I resealed Thunders windshield in prep for our trek north, and I ordered a number of items off of Amazon so I can finish a number of projects before heading north. The items should all be here next week, giving me a couple of weeks to get things finished off.

Day 2319

Thursday February 8th 2024

Dear Journal:

Departure day from Caliente Springs, we have a six hour trip today to get back to the Arboretum. It has been a busy few day with Mary & Julie, as we explored a number of different areas around the campground. We feel honored to have experienced some of the areas that had been part of their lives a few years ago, a huge THANK YOU for not only sharing these experiences with us, but playing the role of our personal Uber driver and tour guide.

The weather still sucks here in California as there is more rain in the forecast and as we look east into Arizona it is obvious that there will be some driving in rain in our near future, but there does appear to be some dry miles ahead as well. We are not in a huge rush this morning but because we have six hours of driving ahead of us we are planning on hitting the road by nine o’clock Pacific time as we loose an hour at the Arizona border and enter Mountain time. Miss Laurie had prepared much of the coach for travel last evening and I just have to disconnect the power and raise the jacks as we never even pull the slide out this visit.

Coffee, a quick breakfast consisting of some pastry items (from yesterdays bakery visit), a sad “so long” to our glorious hosts and we are firing up Thunder and winding our way out of the campground. We are disappointed that we never got to do some of the items on Miss Laurie’s to-do list but we did some adventures that we didn’t even know about a few days ago. As we start our journey east we have a little reprieve from the rain and as we start the climb out of the Palm Springs valley we even get a little sunshine to go along with some road construction.

There will be no pictures today, this is just a travel eastbound on Interstate I-10, through the desert, so not really a photogenic area. We did discover during this little adventure that the items in our freezer where thawing, not really what I wanted to deal with on a travel day. S0 as we are driving along I’m trying to understand why the freezer compressor would not be operating, as the refrigerator compressor is keeping the fridge cold. So I can eliminate a circuit breaker or a wiring failure, but I just wont be able to diagnose it till we settle for the night, but lets just say nobody is happy right about now. I did have a quick peak in the refrigerator opening when we stopped at a rest stop for some lunch and it appears there has been an electrical melt down near the freezer compressor. This is the new “Dutch Aire” cooling unit that I purchased and installed last July in Ontario.

Lets just say the drive was long with rain off and on for most of the day, as we were entering the Phoenix valley area and we are not looking forward to the heavy traffic, I have planned a fuel stop just off of the 202 bypass that runs south of Phoenix, it will add a few miles to our route but will avoid the worst of the construction on I-10. It is not a route that we have travelled but construction on I-10 plus afternoon rush hour traffic I felt it would be a good option. And other that some stop and go traffic which was expected it worked out to be a good option, we connected with US-60 for the last push to the Arboretum and we made it just after the gates had closed. We tucked back into our site, hooked up the water and electrical, ran the slide out and used the jacks to level the coach.

It is a cold misting evening but I was determined to check out the burnt wire on the freezer compressor, I need to determine if I can get it operating before we loose everything in the freezer. I quickly diagnose that it is the main power wire to the compressor controller that has burnt so I quickly make up a new wire with a spade connector. but when I go to push the connector on to the controller I discover that the connector is an odd size, I carry two sizes but neither one fit, so in a final attempt I use a pair of plyers to reshape the connector to make it work temporarily. At this point I’m cold, wet and tired but I now have the freezer compressor running, I do not have a meter to check the DC amp current draw of the compressor, but the wire seemed to be operating fine, no sign of heating up and as I head to the coach for the night the temperature is again back below the freezing point.

I will deal with the failure in the near future, for now we have a weekend of volunteering to keep us busy until the first of the week. Miss Laurie has went through the freezer and thrown out the items that she is concerned with, it appears to be around a hundred dollars worth of loss. Again we are not happy with the failure of an expensive unit in only seven months of use, and I have already come to my diagnosis of the reason of failure. But Miss Laurie is preparing us a dinner with some freshly thawed items, we will watch some television and be in bed early tonight.

Blog 514