Decompressing......

 7:41 am - Wednesday - October 14th - Sportsman's Beach, Walker Lake, NV - 40° F, humidity 30%, cloud cover 2%, wind 8 mph out of the north by northeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 69° F.  On this date in 2021 TLE, our Newell and I were on the Clinton/Mukilteo Ferry..... 

........at the south end of Whidbey Island, WA...headed towards Seattle, then south on I-5 to I-90, then east to US-395 then south on the 'Mother Road'.  The view this morning.....

When we arrived at Sportsman's Beach Sunday afternoon it was getting cloudy, and Monday was totally cloudy all day, so Tuesday, when we awoke to clear, blue skies it  was like we were in a different place....

A little snow on the local mountains on the west side of US-95

.....in spite of the sunny skies it was just 38° F at 7:44 am, and really didn't get over 50° F until after 1 pm.  In spite of the cold temp I was outside servicing the Newell, and Kohler 7.5 kw generator.  I haven't had to add oil to the 6v92 since last April in Bishop, CA on our way north for our 5th summer at LPG&RVR, and I haven't added coolant for at least 2 years.  The Detroit Diesel was down just 2 quarts of oil (holds 22), and the large, rear facing radiator was about 1/2 gallon of coolant low (holds 24 gallons).  The Kohler was about 1/2 quart low on oil, and about a third of a gallon low on coolant.  Other than walking down to the local dumpster to dispose of our trash for the past 4 days that was the extent of my outdoor activity.

TLE and I spent most of the day reading, and for me at least one big nap.  I've had several great naps since we arrived here at Walker Lake, and that is exactly why we wanted to stay here and spend 3 days doing nothing except decompressing from a summer of four day work weeks.  Of course, there will be work in our future, but on our schedule, and just a few hours a day, winter weather allowing.  

Speaking of weather forecasts, the long range forecast for this winter will be El Niño conditions, which I believe means we'll have more precipitation in the southwest.  The El Niño conditions tend to strengthen the southern rain track, which means more snow at the higher elevations in Arizona (where we will be), Utah, and New Mexico, and the current conditions support much higher than normal precipitation in these states.  We will see how that forecast plays out this winter.  I've already seen reports of snow in the mountains above Flagstaff, and we actually had snow in the local mountains here at Walker Lake.

TLE made tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner, which is a perfect cold day meal.  For our evening entertainment we watched last week's Survivor and Amazing Race episodes, and were in bed by 9:30 pm.  It was a perfect decompression day!

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Most likely we will not return this way again.....

 8:40 am - Monday - October 12th - Sportsman's Beach, Walker Lake, NV - 49° F, humidity 42%, wind 13 mph out of the north....heavy cloud cover with a chance of rain later today.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were camping on the shores of Ririe Reservoir......

....just north of Idaho Falls, ID.  By the next morning the area would be blanketed with snow....  

....that was totally unexpected!  The view this morning....

....it is supposed to rain today, and it certainly does look like rain.

We began our first day post LPG&RVR at Honey Lake Rest Area, as has been our tradition for the past 5 summers.  We were greeted with a beautiful sunrise....

.....it was the first time we have awoken at Honey Lake Rest Area knowing we would not, most likely, return this way again in the Newell.  It was very bitter sweet, but that seems to be the way it is when you turn a page in your life, and head in a different direction....a direction you did not see coming a couple of weeks ago.

To power up the coach Sunday morning I started the Kohler 7.5 kilowatt on board generator, which we rarely use, but as it always does, it fired right up.  As you will recall, it is a propane generator, and not subject to the hazards of varnishing gasoline, so it is very reliable.  While it hummed effortlessly in background I composed, and published the 5,396th blog post of our 15 years of nomadic wanderings.  On a side note, as of this morning, October 12, 2026 we have had 5,918,105 page views of our blog over that time, and are on track to break through the 6 million page views mark  sometime in the next 30 days....maybe even this month.  Once the missive was published it was time to begin getting ready to move further south to Walker Lake Recreational Area.

Normally, we follow US-395 south through Reno, Carson City, Minden, Bridgeport, Lee Vining all the way to Bishop, but we chose to take a different route this time around on US-95.  As we approached the US-395/I-80 interchange we took the off ramp eastbound on I-80 to connect with US-95 south.  Since TLE was driving the VW there were no pictures taken of our journey, but I can tell you the entire 188 miles was without incident.  We took a 15 minute rest stop in Silver Springs, NV, and then continued south to cover the final 77 miles to Sportman's Beach on the shores of Walker Lake (just 16 miles north of Hawthorne).

We arrived at the campground around 1:30 pm, pulled into our chosen site, turned off the big Detroit Diesel 6v92, and then took in the view....

.....it was just as I had imagined it....a beautiful high desert lake with a million dollar view for just $6/night!

Once we were leveled I turned on our 2,000 watt Renogy Inverter so we could watch a few games of NFL football.  Around 7:30 pm I walked outside to take a picture looking south toward Hawthorne, NV..... 

....you can see the city lights in the distance.

We'll hang out here at Walker Lake until Wednesday when we will continue our journey south on US-95 through Hawthorne, Tonopah, Goldfield, Beatty, and the Amargosa Valley on our way to Kingman, AZ. where we will transition to US-66 which will take us the rest of the way to The Wilson Wilderness.

Thanks for stopping by!

Modified vs. Pure.......

 7:53 am - Sunday - September 18th - Likely, CA - 52° F, 59% humidity, wind 6 mph out of the south by southeast......heavy cloud cover today...began raining around 5 am, and will continue throughout the day.  The forecast high for today is 62° F.   Rain is forecast through Wednesday.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were overnighting at a Cracker Barrel in Missoula, MT......↴

For the third day in succession we began our day (Saturday) with that same 2 mile roundtrip walk out to Jess Valley Road.  It wasn't quite as cool as it had been, but it was cool enough for pants, and a long sleeve shirt.....

.....we then sat down and watch the entire English Premier Soccer match between Tottenham & Leicester (Lister).  The game was tied at half time, but then Tottenham went on a scoring spree in the 2nd half finishing at 'full time' with a 6-2 final score.  

Saturday was also the 3rd week of NCAA College Football.  Most of the games were blowouts, and not very interesting, and the final game of the day between USC and Fresno State was no different with USC prevailing 45-17 over the now 1-2 Bulldogs.

Now that we have installed our new Renogy Pure Sign Wave inverter it was time to test it to see if it would run our higher end, more sensitive, electronic appliances.  We have a Breville counter top oven (Toaster, Convection, Air Fryer, etc.), a Duxtop induction burner, and an electronic tea kettle....none of which would work on our old Heart Interface Modified Sine Wave inverter.  At any rate, just before we took our walk I unplugged the Newell's 50 amp power cord from the electric pedestal for the first time in over 5 months, and plugged it into the 50 amp plug inside the electric bay.  Via a 3 position switch up by the driver seat I can send either inverted 120 VAC power to that plug, or generated 120 VAC from our onboard Kohler generator.  

One improvement which became immediately apparent was that each leg was receiving just over 122 volts, whereas with the Heart Interface we would only get around 115 volts....so a big improvement there.  TLE then turned on, one at a time, each of the aforementioned appliances and they all worked as they should, and there was no voltage drop whatsoever.  That was the acid test, and it all worked as it should.  One of the great things about this new Renogy inverter is while it is a 2,000 watt inverter, it can take a momentary surge of up to 6,000 watts without tripping the circuit breaker.  Not that we will be running anything that would cause a momentary surge like that (the A/C's are one example), it is nice to know.

I spent a few hours watching the aforementioned NCAA college football games, before we headed over to the Clubhouse around 3:45 pm for the weekly putting contest.  TLE and I both managed to play two rounds before succumbing to defeat.  At last week's putting contest the game time temperature was 95° F, whereas Saturday's game time temp was 69° F, and much lower than that by the time the contest ended around 5:30 pm.  I know I've said it a few times now, but Fall is definitely in the air.  I guess I keep saying it to convince myself this change is for real, and not just temporary.  I am heartened by the fact that the 15 day forecast, which takes us through October 2nd, shows the cooling trend to be for real with temps mostly in the 60's and 70's.

Thanks for stopping by!

The Jello didn't jiggle......

7:18 am - Wednesday - March 23rd - Elks Backyard, CA - 61° F, humidity 34%, wind 3 mph out of the north by northeast......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 86° F.  On this date in 2012 we were overnighting at a Walmart near Baton Rouge, LA.....6 weeks into our nomadic odyssey......↴

Our Jello plan for Tuesday was to be up by 6 am, and on the road by 7 am.  There were no utilities from which to disconnect, the trailer was on the Newell hitch, the turf, and VW were inside the trailer....we were ready to roll our wheels on a moment's notice.  I turned on our big Kohler/Perkins 7.5 kw generator to run the block heater (it was cold), and perk some coffee whilst TLE readied the Newell interior for travel. Most of my departure work occurs in the days prior to departure, while nearly 100% of TLE's departure prep is on the day of departure.  She has a routine she follows to transform our home on wheels into a road worthy vehicle, and usually within 40 minutes she pronounces the Newell road worthy once again.

As she finished her work securing the Newell interior I turned on the Garmin Trucker GPS, and entered our destination.....Fontana/Rialto Elks Lodge.....just 132 miles from our boondock site.  Once that was done I turned the ignition key clockwise and heard the big Detroit Diesel 6v92 roar to life.  While TLE turned off the block heater I powered down the Kohler/Perkins generator and prepared for liftoff.  Zero time was 6:45 am.....I love it when a plan comes together!

After almost 3 weeks boondocking our black tank was just 50% full, but we always like to arrive at the Elks Lodge with empty waste tanks, so after a short 16 mile drive over the hump down to the Salton City Travel Center we pulled into one of their 5 dump stations to transfer our effluent to their sewer system.  Within 30 minute we were rolling again north on SR-86 along the western shore of the Salton Sea.

From the Salton Sea which sits at -131' elevation to the top of Banning Pass at 2,600' we gain almost 2,800' in elevation in around 50 miles, and most of that is gained from Palm Desert to the summit, which is about 20 miles.....it is a grinder which keeps us in 2nd, or 3rd gear most of the time.  As I've mentioned previously, Banning Pass separates the Coachella Valley (Palm Springs, Pam Desert, Indio, La Quinta, etc) from the Pomona Valley (Fontana, Rancho Cucamonga, Ontario, Pomona, etc).

The forecast high for Tuesday in Fontana was 89° F, and we wanted to arrive at the Elks Lodge well before that.  As it turned out we arrived around 10:30 am with temps just edging into the high 70's.  By the time we had backed into site #3 (we have stayed in site #3 90% of the time we have been coming to the Fontana/Rialto Elks Lodge), hooked up our utilities, and deployed our awnings it was 11:30 am.....perfect!

As luck would have it we arrived right at the tail end of another 'Santa Ana' wind event....by 1 pm the winds had abated.  Around 3 pm we got dressed and drove over to our favorite local Mexican seafood restaurant...Mariscos Del Pacifico....for a late lunch/early dinner, and then to the home of Chris and Rochelle (oldest son, beautiful, bright, intelligent daughter-in-law) to pick up our mail.  It was nice to sit and talk with them for about an hour without interruption.  Usually when we see them it is at their office, or at a family gathering, so being able to sit with them in their home 'one on one' was a treat.

By the time we left Chris and Rochelle it was around 5:40 pm, and right smack dab in the middle of the Pomona Valley rush hour on SR-210.  Usually the freeway is stop and go at this point, but we were blessed with traffic moving along at 60+ mph all the way to the Ayala exit which takes us south to the Elks Lodge.

Tuesday could not have gone better for us....there was no 'jiggling Jello', and now we settle in for 10-14 days for the upcoming nuptials of our granddaughter Cynthia, and Daniel.  We'll be getting the Newell coolant and oil changed (the same for the VW, plus the new rear rotor and pads), and running a bunch of errands.  I know the time will fly, and before we know it we will be disconnecting our utilities again to head north on US-395 to our summer job in Likely, CA....where have the last 4 months gone?

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Making an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'.....

 7:24 am - Sunday - January 9th - Anza Borrego Desert, CA - 42° F, 43% humidity, wind 2 mph out of the north by northeast......mostly sunny today with a forecast high of 72° F.  On this date in 2013 we were having lunch with good friend Ernie Prociw (pronounced Procie) who drove over to Cedar Key, FL from Stuart, FL to visit us.....↴

.....we've courtesy parked in his driveway twice over the years....he has a 30 amp receptacle awaiting our return.....😊.  The view this morning.......↴

Beautiful sunrise on the eastern horizon

On Friday, after we returned from dumping our tanks I plugged in my pancake air compressor to inject air into the new sight tube I installed on the black tank to clear a blockage.  While that worked, another problem developed with the electrical system in the Newell.  I had plugged the compressor into an electrical outlet inside the through bay.  To power up the coach for this endeavor I turned on the big Kohler 7.5 kw propane generator to provide AC power to the compressor.  After I finished clearing the 'plug' in the sight tube I discovered I had lost power to that outlet, as well as the outlet in the TV compartment over the driver seat.  Actually, at the time, and well into late Saturday evening I thought I had lost power to the entire right side of the coach as the volt meter for that side of the coach was reading zero.

I immediately began trouble shooting the problem by making sure both breakers on the generator were in the 'ON' position, and they were.  Then I switched the coach over to the inverter, and the problem persisted.  I then plugged the coach into the Honda generator with no change.  From there I made sure both 50 amp blades on the male end of the shore power cord were getting power, and they were.  Next I checked where the shore power cord connects to the coach wiring, and was still getting power on both legs.  At that point it was getting dark do I deferred any additional trouble shooting to Saturday.

First thing Saturday morning (after posting my blog) I opened up my closet and began to test the circuits on the main breaker box with my multi meter.  I found that both the red and black wires were hot going into the main 60 amp duplex breaker (60 amps on both sides), and then tested each of the 12 individual breakers and was getting power to ALL  of them....now how can that be if I have no power on the right side of the coach?  I was baffled, and so was my good friend Steve Ward, who owns the sister Newell coach to ours.....his serial number is one digit before ours.  He is an expert on all things electrical, and was helping me over the phone from his winter locale on the Colorado River (about 200 miles from here).  My mistake was in assuming that everything was dead on the right side of the coach.  We all know what happens when one 'ASSUMES', right?

Finally, around 5 pm it occurred to me that I had never really tested all the outlets on the right side of the coach, so I proceeded to do so.  Well, what do you know?  They were all working EXCEPT for one in the through bay, and the TV cabinet.  The sensor wire which powers the volt meter for the right side of the coach is wired into that outlet.....doh!  So now everything makes sense.  It appears both the outlet in the through bay, and the TV compartment are daisy chained together, which means I only need to check one circuit to find the short.  The short is somewhere between the breaker (#4) which controls that circuit, and the TV compartment receptacle, and more than likely where the line which goes to the through bay receptacle is spliced into circuit #4....I just have to find the short, and repair it.....that will be the fun part, which begins Sunday morning.  At least I know now what I am looking for, and how to fix it.

The rest of Saturday was kind of a blur as I spent a lot of time both working the problem, and thinking about it.  Steve was a great help in focusing me on each step of the trouble shooting process, and encouraging me.  Ultimately I was my own worst enemy for assuming facts not in evidence.  Once I stopped assuming things became much clearer.  Lesson learned.....I hope...lol!

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Searchin'

 7:24 am - Wednesday - December 29th - Anza Borrego Desert, CA - 42° F, 69% humidity, wind 4 mph out of the north by northwest.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 61° F.  The view this morning......↴

Looking west.....

Sunrise in the east...

.....on this date in 2018 we were arriving at Sunset Isle RV Park in Cedar Key, FL.....one of our all time favorite places.....↴

The winds continued Tuesday unabated, but not as bad.....just bad enough to make it undesirable to be outside longer than it took to take a couple of pictures.  Our batteries were down to 79% when we awoke, so we turned on the big Kohler 7.5 kw generator for about an hour to push some electrons back into our house batteries, and then switched over to the Honda E2000i generator to finish the job.....it was slated to be overcast all day, and it was.  Ultimately I turned off the Honda when the house batteries hit 97% around 11:30 am.  It appeared we would get some afternoon sun, but it never really materialized long enough to finish charging the batteries.  There was, however, enough sunlight to keep the batteries at 97% the rest of the day.  As I have written previously, it's not imperative that the batteries get back to 100% every day, but they should return to 100% at least once a week, which is not an issue as we have gotten to 100% about 90% of the time we have been boondocking here.

The sunrise Tuesday gave some promise of a lot of sunlight, but the clouds quickly rolled in after these pictures were taken....

.....one of the rare times I was outside for any length of time I noticed that we had lost the left front wheel cover on the Newell during the heavy winds Sunday night/Monday morning.  We also lost the solar light off the top of the flag pole, but I found that within minutes Monday morning....it had flown through the air around 100 feet directly to the southeast.  I did not realize then we had also lost the aforementioned wheel cover.  Anyway, I began to walk out toward S-22 scanning the scrub brush for the black tire cover, and ultimately crossed over the highway walking about 200 yards out to the south.  About that point I remembered the direction the flag pole solar light had flown, so I shifted my search more to the southwest.  Just about the time I had lined myself up with the flag pole and began to walk back, still looking for the wheel cover,  I heard TLE call my name.  She had seen me out looking for something (for what she did not know at the time) so she came out toward S-22 and immediately saw the wheel cover just on the south side of the highway, which is why she called my name.  I looked over and saw her holding the black wheel cover....it was right in line with my direction of travel back toward the trailer, and flag pole!

Searching for the wheel cover was about as exciting as it got for us Tuesday as we continued to hunker down inside the warm interior of our home on wheels.  We both spent most of the day reading......

.....around 4:15 pm I noticed we might get a little peak at a sunset so I went outside to memorialize it as best I could......

.....we have now been at our current boondock site for almost 5 weeks, and a total of almost 6 weeks since we arrived in Ocotillo Wells back on the 23rd of November.  The sunrises and sunsets begin to blur one into another, and the peace and serenity we feel deepens with each passing day.  We are in our happiest of happy places when we can spend days and weeks living off the grid as we are doing now.  I'll leave you with this recording by the Coasters.....

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Second sight......

7:34 am - Saturday - December 18th - Anza Borrego Desert, CA - 30° F, 43% humidity, wind 2 mph out of the northwest.....crystal clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 66° F....that's a 36° differential!  On this date in 2017 we were working at the Grand Canyon for the winter, and I spent the afternoon polishing the Newell to make her pretty again......↴

Back in February of 2020 when we last boondocked here in the Anza Borrego Desert we went 28 days without dumping our black tank.  It's been 19 days since we last dumped, and we probably could have gone another week+, but we're going to be here until at least December 29th, and I'm pretty sure we will need to dump before then, so we decided to drive over to Palm Canyon Campground (a State park) in Borrego Springs to utilize their dump station ($10 charge) on Friday.  Additionally, I wanted to replace the black tank sight tube, and I  needed an EMPTY black tank to do so.  The drive from our boondock site to the dump station is a little over 9 miles, so, in preparation for rolling our wheels, I moved our rope lights, stowed our camp chairs, Honda generator, and a few other things in the trailer.  I also stowed the Winegard satellite dish, but left the solar panels tilted as we were not going that far, or that fast....we've done this before and have never had a problem.  While I was so engaged we had the big Kohler genset running to power the block heater in preparation for turning over the big Detroit Diesel 6v92.  By 10:30 am we were ready to roll, so TLE moved the VW while I pulled out of our site, then parked the VW in front of the trailer before heading into town.  The drive over was uneventful.....we paid or $10 fee to the nice lady Ranger in the kiosk......

.....and made our way over to their very nice dump station....the first thing you come to is the fresh water fill up station, and the second is the actual dump station about 30 yards further.....

....it took us a less than an hour to dump the tank, and refill our fresh water tank, which was down to 80 gallons after 19 days.  We filled it to the 150 gallon mark, then stopped at the dumpster to donate 19 days of trash, and were on our way home around 11:30 am.

I needed some additional hardware store supplies to finish my black tank project, and TLE wanted to do a couple loads of wash, so we drove back into town around 1 pm to do just that.  I dropped TLE off at the laundromat, and headed for TruValue where I found everything I needed.  When I returned to the laundromat the wash cycle was about done, so after TLE put everything into the dryer we walked over to Big Horn Fudge Company to get some ice cream.....I chose a cup of their Burgandy Cherry....I haven't had ice cream for longer than I can remember.....

....by the time we returned to the laundromat the drying cycle was done, so I helped TLE fold our clothes before we headed home.

Our black tank has a 'sight tube' mounted on the site of the tank so we can tell how full it is getting.  About 8 years ago the old sight tube clogged up, and stopped working.  At the time I tried to unclog it, but then the copper fittings began to leak, so I drained the tank, and filled the bottom copper elbow with silicone caulk.  It was not apparent to me at the time how I could fix that, so my solution was to scrape some of the black paint off the black tank portion of our segmented black/gray water tank to allow me to check the level of black water that way.  The tanks are made of a translucent plastic.  Anyway, that worked well for 8 years, but finally I figured out how to replace the site tube.  Below is the old site tube with rotted copper fittings....sewage water apparently takes a toll on copper over 40 years.....lol.....

Out with the old

.....sometimes it was difficult to see the level of efflfuent, but I got pretty good at it over time......

.....since then I've become aware of Sharkbite fittings with the installation of our tankless water heater.  Recently I reinspected the old sight tube and found that one side of each copper elbow was 1/2" copper pipe with male threads, so I began to look for Sharkbite elbow fittings that had 1/2" male threads on one side, and I found them at Home Depot......

......I already had the clear tubing on hand so once we got home from the laundromat I set to work taking out the old site tube, unscrewing the old copper elbows, and installing the new site tube using the Sharkbite threaded elbows.  Amazingly I had it all done within 45 minutes.  The great thing about the Sharkbite fittings is I can take everything apart in minutes to repair any portion which may go bad, or get clogged in the future.....the same with the new hose bib for flushing the black tank.  By the way, the new black tank hose bib worked great, and did not leak!

By the time I finished installing the new black tank sight tube it was almost 3:30 pm, and sunset was not far away.  We had planned on another sunset fire, but changed our minds at the last minute, deciding to stay inside and watch a Hallmark Christmas movie......I haven't had a good cry in a while, so why not, right?

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Easy as pie.....

 8:07 am - Monday - October 4th - Coupeville, WA - 49° F, 93% humidity, wind - CALM....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 57° F.  On this date in 2018 we had just arrived at Bishop's Orchards in Guilford, Connecticut....Bishop's Orchards is a Harvest Hosts location where you stay for free one, or two nights......↴

Sunday was the last day of our 3 day journey to Coupeville, WA and as things would have it I was up early thinking about the .5 mile drive over to the Port Townsend/Coupeville Ferry terminal.  Over the course of 10 years we have traveled on ferries many times with the Newell and trailer, so its kind of old hat for us, but still my mind thinks about what can go wrong.  For instance, many times when the overnight low is below 50° F I need to use the block heater to warm up the coolant in the big Detroit Diesel sufficiently to get her to fire when I turn her over.  Since we were dry camping the only alternative was to fire up our Kohler generator to power the block heater, but as luck would have it generators are not allowed at any time at Point Hudson Marina & RV Park.  Obviously, if she didn't start I would have turned on the generator and risked a reprimand in order to get her started, but I didn't want it to come to that, so that was on my mind.  Another issue was that since we had parked Saturday afternoon one of the tenants in the full hookup sites in front of us had parked their pickup truck in such a way as to restrict the size of my egress point making it more difficult for us to exit without undo maneuvering, so that was on my mind.

To solve the first dilemma I determined to attempt to start the 6v92 around 7:45 am to see if it would start, and thereby negate my need for the generator.  If it didn't start, then I would turn on the generator so we could depart at the chosen time of 8:15 am for our short drive to the ferry terminal.  As it turned out the big Detroit Diesel fired right up without a hiccup, so one dilemma solved.  The second dilemma resolved itself shortly thereafter when the owner of the pickup came out of his RV to get something out his truck, so TLE walked over and explained our situation.  He immediately agreed to move his truck.....another problem solved, and we were able to depart right on time.

We arrived at the ferry terminal just before 8:30 am (one hour in advance), paid our $97 fare, and proceeded to the front of lane #1.......

.....more often than not we are the first one on the ferry, and the first one off due to our size, plus that gives us a front row seat to the water crossing......

....our Garmin Trucker thinks nothing of a water crossing....the ferry route is just another road....

....I was actually pretty sanguine about how well things had gone so far, so I'm not sure how TLE caught me with a frown upon my face.....lol......

....soon the disembodied voice of Miss Garmin was advising me to exit the ferry and turn to the right.....

....and we were on our way to cover the final 8 miles to Bob and Karen's home where we arrived just before 10:30 am without incident.  Moving our gear down to Bob's property is a multi stage event.  First we remove the Beetle from the trailer, then drop the trailer from the hitch, and drive the Newell down a short gravel road to the upper barn, which is where we park when we are here.  Then TLE drives the VW down and parks it out of the way.  Finally, using Bob's Ford Dually, we haul the trailer down to park it next to the barn, and this is what it looked like 90 minutes later.....

....the short gravel road we traveled down is just to the right in the picture above, and this is our view to the left in the picture below.....

....and this is the commercial pressure washer I will use to steam clean our radiator in a couple of days......

.....it's been just over a year since we were last here, but it seems like yesterday.  We spent the afternoon catching up, and talking about a couple of projects for which Bob needs my assistance.  Life is good.....

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More things off the 'to do'......

 7:22 am - Sunday - September 12th - Seal Rock, OR - 54° F, 100% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the north by northeast......heavy overcast with fog now, partly sunny later....the forecast high today is 61° F.  On this date in 2017 we were in Jackson Hole, WY.......↴

My plans for Sunday were much less ambitious than Friday.....I wanted to get the new sewer vent cap installed, run the Kohler/Perkins propane generator for a while, turn over the big Detroit Diesel 6v92 engine, and pull the wheel covers off the Newell tires to see if my experiment worked.  First up was the sewer vent cap....the old one looked pretty gnarly....

The old tin sewer vent cap...top and bottom.....really rusted out!

I think I over did the silicone seal last time....lol!

I had to use JB Weld to hold the cap together until the new one arrived....without the JB Weld it would have been dust....lol!

.....once I had the old vent cap off I cleaned the surface of the roof, then installed the new PVC vent cap sealing the bottom with outdoor silicone.  The old cap had a 5 screw pattern, while the new one has a 6 screw pattern, so I sealed the old holes with silicone, then used self tapping Phillips head screws to attach the new vent cap........

I believe the PVC material will fair much better against the elements

.....next up I topped off the generator fluids, then fired her up....she started immediately and ran like a top until I shut her down 15 minutes later.  Likewise, the big Detroit Diesel 6v92 fired up and ran for about 15 minutes until it came up to temperature.  It's been 7 weeks since I last ran the Detroit, and during that time we have stayed perfectly level, and only this week the air pressure dropped below 100 psi...that's the best our air system has ever performed while being parked for months at a time.

The final task of the day was to pull the wheel covers, then remove the shrink wrap (front wheels), and card board discs (rear wheels) to see if they had mitigated the salt air intrusion.  The results are mixed.....the wheels on the driver side faired better than the passenger side, but there was salt intrusion, and there will be a little cleanup necessary for them to shine like they did in March when I last polished them.

By the time I finished the last task it was after 4 pm, and time for a shower.  In spite of the offshore clouds we managed to get a sunset shot once again.....

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