The Sandcastle

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

 

As I said in my last post, I set out to run errands in the rain.

Looking at my fuel gauge as I drove into town it said I had a full tank and had only driven 10 miles since my last fill up. What?! My furnace had used so little fuel in the last week and a half that is didn’t even move the gauge? Then why did my furnace stop working?

So I skipped the gas station for now and made Walmart my first stop. I’m not supposed to ride my Scoot in the rain so I needed to park close. The Walmart in Parker, Arizona, has one of those over-sized handicapped parking spots in which my over-sized van fits. There was a Jeep in it. So I sat off the side of the driveway in the fire lane waiting for a place I could park near enough for me to be able to walk into the store. Finally a car pulled out of one of those nose-in spots next to the long one so I drove around the row and pulled in across it and the striped area of the big spot until I pretty much cleared the drive itself coming fairly close to being nose to nose with that Jeep.

Luckily there was a fully charged cart available so I was able to do all my shopping in one go.

When I cam back out there was a VW Beetle in the over-sized spot. Do people not think at all? That driver has to have seen the maneuver I had to make to park next to him yet he took the big spot!

Now, it was time to decide what to do about my furnace. So, I called Dave, of course. He walked me through several potential problems checking things like the possibility of a blown fuse. Nope the fuse is fine. Nope the system for checking for error codes says there were no errors. Yes, the display on the remote works. Yes, the fan blows but the air is not getting warm; it’s just bringing outside air in through the furnace without heating it. We decide this is beyond our ability to solve so I will have to call someone. There is an Espar dealer in Phoenix so I may have to head there this week.

In the meantime, I head back into Walmart to buy a small electric heater. I’m not going to freeze while we figure out this problem.

When I come back out this time there is a pickup truck parked in the long spot. About time someone got it right.

Then off to do laundry. There are two women in the laundromat. They promptly tell me the water pressure in the machines is not up to doing the job. The sink works, though, so they have been using buckets to fill the machines for the wash and rinse cycles. They insist I stay and they will do the filling for me. So, I do and they do and I give them each one of my string bags as a thank you.

As I’m transferring my now clean clothes to the dryer, I realize my lingerie bag never got in. Guess I’ll be doing some hand laundry this week. Wonder what else can go wrong today?

I decide I’ve earned a reward so I take myself to Pizza Hut for my favorite chicken and mushroom pizza. They are out of mushrooms. Of course they are. So I settle for chicken and olives

Finally back home I decide to practice one form of insanity. The one defined as doing the same thing while expecting different results. I didn’t expect different results when I turned my furnace on but I decided to try it anyway.

It worked. Maybe it just needed a day off on my off day.

TTYL,

Linda

ps. Not wanting to stress my furnace too much again, I plugged in my new space heater to see if it worked. Wow, does it work! I got something right!