Category: Uncategorized

Here’s ONE of the upsides of being surrounded by like minded people.

I was fussing that my solar panels don’t provide enough electricity to meet my high demands so I was driving for an hour every other day to keep my batteries charged.

Terry promptly jumped in and said he’d bring over his portable Honda generator to charge my batteries.

 

Which he did. We plugged my RV into his generator and all assumed all was well. You know about that word “assume”, don’t you? How it breaks down into three words?

Turns out the generator was producing plenty of electricity but my rig was rejecting it. Not good enough. Huh!

So Terry and Lee came over and spent a few hours trying to figure out why. Then a couple days later Mike joined them and they puzzled some more.

 

They took turns lying in the very narrow aisle of my RV analyzing what was happening.

 

The consensus is that my Electrical Management System (EMS) wants the generator to be grounded.

Now we are in the desert. The ground is all rock. We are not going to try to pound a four-foot stake into this ground just to keep my EMS happy.

So, I am using my engine to charge my batteries. We did find out I don’t actually have to drive anywhere to do that, though.

So while everyone else is running their generators, I run my engine. Hey, whatever works, right?

TTYL,

Linda

Here I am, all alone, out in the desert.

Except.

Through my front window:

Denise on the left; Mike & Julie on the right. The middle one in the distance is not someone we know.

Out my right window:

From the left including those in the distance: Lee, Pa & D, Doug & Toni, Bill & Jan, Jim & Sandy, Terry & Jeri.

Behind me:

John & Nan, Mike & Deb

Out my left window:

Jeff & Tina, and, I think, The Little Red Rooster who’s occupants I have not yet met but “know” from the SKP forum. (Oops. That’s Tom & Diane not Jeff & Tina. Jeff & Tina’s rig is not visible from my windows. And the Little Red Rooster holds Roger & Lynn.)

Here’s a bunch of those people gathered for pizza last night:

So many of us we overflowed to another table:

Yup. Here I am, all alone, out in the desert. 🙂

TTYL,

Linda

As you all know, a couple weeks ago during the night my furnace decided to stop working. So I went into town and bought an electric heater. At which point my furnace started working just fine.

For a week.

Then it stopped working again.

So on Monday morning I called around and found a place that said bring it in and they’d look at it to see if they could work on it or not. I think telling them it was installed in an RV made them a little nervous.

So Tuesday I drove to Phoenix.

Here’s my little RV in Thermo King West’s big shop.

Once I showed them where the furnace was they laid blankets on the floor to protect it. Actually Coda handed me the blankets and I pulled them into position because he didn’t even want to walk on the floor enough to lay the blankets down.

Then he hooked up their diagnostics computer.

This plugs into a wire harness on my furnace. It then reads what is happening and posts codes for the workers to tell them what it sees as a problem. Then it tells them what fix they should do.

Here’s Travis trying to remove my furnace from the cupboard that apparently was built after the furnace was installed.

He got it out and cleaned out my carburetor. Didn’t fix it. Another computer run. Try changing this part. Didn’t fix it. Try running some kerosene through the system to clean it.

Didn’t fix it.

I don’t actually know how many things they tried. I just know they did eventually get the fan running and the system producing heat both at the same time.

Yay!

Then Travis had to put it all back together again including hooking up the exhaust hose to that little silver outlet by his left knee.

No charge for any of that given that the furnace is only 2 months old.

No explanation as to why my carburetor should be so dirty in such a short time either except to say these are usually installed in trucks and truck drivers don’t run their furnace as many hours as I do.

So I headed west again only making it about 13 miles before stopping at a Cracker Barrel for a very late dinner. Spent the night in their parking lot. It was nice to have heat again.

For the first part of the night.

At 64° my furnace shut off. Once again the fan would blow but the heater would not ignite. So the fan would turn off, wait a few seconds, then try again. Tired of listening to that I shut the furnace off. No electricity for my space heater in Cracker Barrel’s parking lot. So I put on a sweat suit, a polar fleece jacket, and a knit hat. And put my lap rug over my comforter and crawled into bed. It was nice and cozy.

But, when I had to get up the next morning it was not so cozy.

So, I drove back to Thermo King and they tried again.

This next part is SO embarrassing. The reason my furnace stopped during the night? It ran out of fuel. I knew I only had a half tank when I went to the shop the first day but I was so tired when I left there I didn’t look to see how much fuel they burned during their tests. When my diesel tank gets down to 1/4 tank, it stops feeding the furnace to be sure I have enough fuel to drive to the next gas station.

Boy, do I feel dumb.

Warm but dumb.

TTYL,

Linda

 

I like to play games. Pretty much any type of games. Mostly on my iPad nowadays. The one I am currently addicted to is Royal Envoy 2.

In this game you rebuild communities by doing such things as making wood, harvesting food, and building various types of housing and community buildings. The challenge is to figure out which things to do in which order to get it all done. If you do it quickly enough you win gold stars. And who among us does not like getting gold stars?

Here’s some info about the first in this series which is available on several different platforms: http://www.playrix.com/games/pc/royal-envoy.html

This is what I do while you all are watching TV. 🙂

TTYL,

Linda

This is the time of year when the news is full of people killed when a space heater sets their home on fire. So this post is to reassure you who worry about me. (Hi, Tammy.)

First are the safety features built into the unit itself. These were on my “must have” list so I was glad to find them printed right on the box.

The next thing to do was decide where to put it.

Yesterday I tried putting it on the counter right behind me. It was like sitting by a wood fire–too warm on one side. So today I decided I’d trying heating the room instead of heating me.

The safest place to put it to try that seemed to be at the far end of the hallway. This is the view of it from my desk area.

To hard to see that? How about from the other end of my bed?

My Scoot is currently parked outside so there’s lots of room there. See? Nothing close that could catch on fire.

And if I turn around and straddle it and look up I see:

My fire detector on the ceiling about as close to that heater as it can get.

While across from me sitting at my desk is:

My primary exit. That’s my key lying on the counter so I can grab it on my way by if I should have to exit quickly. Hate to get locked out, you know. Besides, that key would let me unlock the back doors right behind the heater in case I should actually have to use a fire extinguisher on it. The extinguisher is just to the lower left of that door pictured above.

So, all in all, I am as safe as a person can be in any house where a heater or furnace of some type or another is in use.

But at night I still unplug this one and use my furnace.

Just so you know.

TTYL,

LInda