Exhaling.....

Saturday was a very, very, very cold day here in lovely Campbellsville.....a high of 35 was recorded somewhere......it never seemed that warm to me.  It seemed that I was always trying to get warm.  First my hands were cold, but I couldn't wear gloves all the time because I was handling small wires, and bolts.  Then my feet would get cold and I'd have to go inside the coach to warm them up.  

Since I had no work obligations looming Saturday afternoon I had the whole day to work on my trailer maintenance projects.  In my mind everything always appears to be much more complicated than it turns out to be.  I started around 9 am to remove the front two tires on the trailer (one right, and one left) to take them over to the local Firestone place to be replaced.  You will remember that way back in Forks, WA I noticed the right rear tire tread separating, and immediately had that one replaced.  About 1500 miles later the left rear one began to separate so I had that replaced in Sand Springs, OK.  The remaining two began to look a little sketchy in Louisville, but I thought we could get another 100 miles out of them, and we did.  So, here we are Saturday replacing the final two tires.  Once I got both tires off I took off the brake drum for the right front wheel so I could be sure the new brake assemblies I had bought on Ebay would fit.  The ones in the box looked way too big, and I was concerned I had made a mistake, even though intellectually I knew they were the right ones because I had taken the part number directly off the current set and did a search on Google and found what I needed, then went on Ebay and bought them.  Of course, once again, I tend to look for problems where there are none.  As soon as I exposed the old brake assembly and put up the new one next to it I could see they were the same exact size......whew....one more imaginary problem solved.....:D

Around 11 am it was time to take TLE into her hair and massage appointment at Phase 2, an Aveeda Salon.  This will mean something to the ladies here, but it means nothing to a guy who has been going to Supercuts for 30 years.  After I dropped TLE off to her much deserved spa day I headed over to Firestone to drop off the two wheels.  The replacement tires are coming in Monday, and according to Bill I can come by around "dinner time" to pick them up.  When Bill said "dinner" it occurred to me that "dinner" might mean something different to him than to me, so, in order to clarify I mentioned I was from Southern California and there dinner was usually in the evening.  He replied that "supper" was at night, and dinner was in the middle of the day.  Okay, at least I know for sure when I'm supposed to pick them up.  I then asked him if he needed my contact information and he replied......"ya'll are the one coming to pick them up, right?" I replied "yes"......he said...."fine, I'll see ya'll Monday around "dinner time".

Then I headed over to Tractor Supply......what a cool place.....why don't we have these in Southern California?  I needed to buy a replacement 2 5/16" hitch ball.  My existing one has acquired a stripped thread making it difficult to compress the split washer,  and therefore keeps coming loose, and I don't want the trailer to suddenly take off on its own, so it's time to replace it.  I was able to buy a 14,000 lb. rated ball for $13....wow, that's less than half what I have seen them for elsewhere.  I also had to buy a replacement 1/2" drive socket wrench as I broke my existing one taking off the lug nuts on the trailer wheels.    That 1/2" drive one was only about 10 years old, and I was surprised it failed so soon....I have a 3/8" one I bought in 1971 and I still have it, and it still works great!

I got back "home" around 11:45 am and set to work replacing the two front brake assemblies, and it was a piece of cake.......again, way easier than I expected.  I'll finish putting the other two on Monday afternoon after I get the front tires back on.  Then we'll drop the trailer back on the hitch and load the T'Bird for our lift off Wednesday morning.

After that it was time to pick up TLE from her spa day, and then work on fixing the EZup that was damaged in the wind the other day.  Fortunately I had a few replacement support arms from the last time it was damaged back in the summer of 2011 when we were still at Rancho Jurupa Regional Park, and it was just a matter of removing the damaged ones, and installing the "new" ones.  

By the time I finished with that task it was getting much colder and I retreated to the coach, and watched a little TV, then fell asleep for a couple of hours, then took a looooooong hot shower.  TLE had taken a 2 hour nap earlier......she never takes naps.  Then, by 8:30 pm we were both ready for bed......I fell asleep around 9 pm, but was wide awake, with TLE, at 4am.....like I said, it will take a few days to become daytime creatures again.  So, anyway, we both decided to get up.....so here I am at 4:30am writing my blog......oh well, there are always naps....:D

So, Sunday will be mostly repacking the inside of the trailer so the T'Bird will fit again, and that will be an all morning project.....then it will be NFL time in the afternoon.  

TLE and I are still trying to adjust to the fact that there is no more Amazon.com work looming out there on Tuesday.  The pressure of a self imposed schedule has been excised, and now it is a matter of shedding our nocturnal life style of the past 11 weeks, and going to bed at a normal time.  It will probably take a few more days to get back on our normal schedule.

Thanks for stopping by!