Handywoman

There just isn't much she won't tackle. Not only does Sandy drive the motorhome, a large tractor brush hogging and on top of all that she’s a great chef. She's also quite a Handywoman. She's not afraid of tackling anything......like caulking for example.

I'm the worlds worst when it comes to pulling a caulk gun and having it look professional afterwards. She has been after me for the longest to re-caulk the bathroom and kitchen sink countertops. So, this weekend I gathered up all my tools and started in the bathroom first. Well let me tell you it didn't take long before I was fired and replaced by the Handywoman.

Sandy first came behind me and scraped all the old caulk off, cleaned the countertops and did an outstanding job in re-caulking and "tooling" the caulk on the countertops. "Tooling" is the process of gliding over the bead of caulk in order to smooth it, making it neater and further establishing good adhesion.
She was able to lay down a very neat bead of sealant and followed

behind with "tooling" the bead with her wet finger smoothing it out.

Her patience and staying with it from start to finish really made the job look very professional. She did such a great job that I may have her re-caulk some of the exterior seams on the motorhome.

 

This is one of the results of her effort. Surprising it didn’t take her long to do both jobs. Oh, on top of all this we are having her Chicken Chile tonight for dinner.

Until next time. . . .MtnAire Travlers.

The Verdict Is In........

After our sticker shock of $899 for a new front load washer, we decided that maybe we should see if the old Kenmore was fixable. Also we learned the LG washer that Sandy really liked was about an inch to deep to fit in the cabinet.

Earlier in the week we borrowed BIL James truck, loaded the old Kenmore and took it to a repair shop in Dangerfield. The repair man said he would look at it and give us a call for a fee of $25. We felt if it could be repaired it should be cheaper than buying a new washer.
Yesterday we got our verdict. The repair man said the machine was beyond fixing.

So, back to square one. We looked on the Internet and called our RV dealer in Carthage, Mo and found a front load Maytag 2.3 cu. ft. washer that will fit in the cabinet. It was about $100 cheaper but the freight would put it back near the $899 price. Now it's just a matter of Sandy deciding whether she wants to get the new washer or continue for awhile doing laundry at her Moms. In the meantime she's enjoying the added storage space in the cabinet where the washer use to reside.

Friday BIL James and his crew did some tractor work, moving tree limbs to the burn pit and a general cleanup of the area. Sandy and I policed the area picking up small limbs and boulders that were in the area dropping them into his front loader on his tractor. Before the day was out we had us quite a bon fire going in the pit.

Until next time. . . .MtnAire Travelers.

Where Did That Water Come From??

Last week Sandy did a load of laundry in the motorhome. We noticed the spin cycle of the washer was a lot louder than what we were use to hearing. Sounded like a plane was taking off. Didn't give it much thought until when Sandy went to remove the clothes I hear....."Where did this water come from"? Uh oh what happened and it had to be coming from the washer.

My first thoughts were maybe one of the water hoses let go and that was the problem. Or, perhaps the drain hose had come out of the drain pipe. The washer is ten years old and perhaps it's water pump was leaking. Being in the tight quarters there is no way one can tell until they pull it out from its cabinet. I understand most service techs won't work on an appliance when mounted in RV cabinets.
I told Sandy that I thought we could pull it out of the cabinet but doubted we could move it out of the motorhome where we could check things out. So, we decided to wait tell maybe we could get BIL James to help us. To be on the safe side I shut off both water faucets.

Yesterday we were over in the shop doing some work. BIL James and is work crew drove by the shop. They had being working on one of his large trailers they use to haul scrap metal from the oil fields to a salvage yard. Sandy told him about our little problem and asked the next time they had some free time could they come over to look at the washer. Before you knew it he said........" pile in and let's go see".

So, off we go to the motorhome. The three of them went in and looked at the situation. The next thing one of his workers asked for a screw driver and some channel lock pliers. Within minutes they had the washer outside and hooked up to our water hose. As water begin to run into the tub we noticed no leaks coming from the water hoses. We let the tub fill up and go through its cycles. During the spin and drain cycle we noticed the tub was real loose and making that very loud noise again. That's when we noticed water was leaving the tub and going down the inside wall of the washer to the ground. They suspect the bearings on the tub where probably shot.

I told Sandy maybe it was time for a new washer. It being ten years old and I just felt we would be throwing good after bad. I told her we needed to look at a front load washer instead of top load. We have very little room for opening the lid on top due to the dryer that's mounted on a shelf above the washer. Not having to look for appliances in a while I could not believe how much more expensive a front load washer was than a top load....about $300-$400 more.
In our search so far we've found the compact top load Kenmore is no longer available at Sears. LG makes a 2.3 Compact Front Load Washer that will fit. They are only asking $899.......Ouch!

In the mean time until we decide what she wants, Sandy cleaned the area where the washer was and now has a small four drawer cabinet in there for storing kitchen things and towels. I said I couldn't believe this as I know you are not going to go without a washer. She said your absolutely right but right now this will work for me. She can do laundry at her Moms until such time she decides enough is enough. All I can say is look at the money we're saving. Yea! I know since I don't do this chore I have not earned the right to be so jubilant.

Until next time. . . .MtnAire Travlers.

A Pleasant Speedco Experience

One of the things that really puts me on edge is getting the motorhomes' oil and filters changed and the chassis lubed. I've had some a bad experiences over the years of service techs telling me one thing and only to find out later they did not follow through.
One example is when I get the MH chassis greased is.......do they grease all the fittings.

They always assure me they did but when we had our 2000 Newmar Dutch Star we lost our u-joints on a trip into California and Arizona. We limped into a repair facility in Phoenix where we learned all of our u-joints where bad due to the lack of not being greased even though each time we were assured that all fittings were greased. The service manager showed me the u-joints and they all were powdery and dry as a bone.

Because of this bad experience I started greasing the chassis my self. This way I knew all were properly greased. Now that I'm a little older it is very difficult to do this myself so I must depend on the service tech doing the correct job again. So when the time comes for this service I naturally get a little antsy.

That time came around again and for most of our services lately we've relied upon Speedco for our maintenance. There is a Speedco facility in Greenwood, La about 90 miles east of us. So, I called them Monday to make sure they had all my filters and to make sure they used Fleetguard. They gave me an affirmative and did jobs on a first come first serve bases. I also got a tentative quote that for 28 quarts of oil and all filters it would cost me about $295.

Upon our arrival I checked in at the service counter and was informed we would be next and to drive into Bay 2 when told to do so. We waited for about 20 minutes before the Mayflower eighteen wheeler pulled out of the service bay after his service was completed.
Once in the bay I was greeted by the shop foreman who discussed what they were going to do as well pull all the right filters. One of the things I discussed with him was how difficult it was to replace the fuel filer on the engine block. For some reason this filter being located where it is on the engine and the Spartan chassis it's very difficult to remove. Something to do with respect to it been located near the starter and just not having the room to manipulate the removal tool. He assured me they would get it changed as well as grease the fittings properly. I was allowed to stay on the shop floor during this servicing.

As anticipated they had a bugger of a time removing that fuel filter. Even to the point the shop foreman going below himself and after about twenty minutes was able to git-r-done. He questioned if this filter had ever been replaced in prior servicing....hummm?
Prior to my paying the shop foreman did a walk through and reassured me all service was done to their specifications and yes all fittings were greased.

When I went in to pay the young lady behind the counter said you are not heavy duty but a medium duty service and the fee was around $245. Now that is a savings of $50 and i left there with the assurance that all service was done correctly.

Oh, I had an appointment with VA Shreveport at 2pm and asked would it be okay to park the MH behind their facility as we drove over in the Jeep. She said sure and told us where to park so we wouldn't be in the way. Now how nice is that. If you are near Greenwood and need your diesel motorhome serviced I highly recommend this facility.

Until next time. . . .MtnAire Travlers.

Lets see............

Where do I begin? I guess I need to pickup from my last post where BIL James took our cargo trailer to his deer lease in West Texas. As I indicated he was going to use it for storage of deer corn and camo hunting gear. He also said he slept in it a couple of nights rather than at the motel in town. This allowed him to be at his stand before the crack of dawn. As to that deer with the perfect rack that he wanted to harvest he never saw it again to shoot. He did say that the Saturday evening he finally gave up on it returning to his hunting stand so he left the area. As luck would have it the trophy deer did return to his hunting stand that night as he got pictures of it with his game camera. I wish the film had better quality as I wanted to post a photo but it wasn't to be as there was too much distortion.

Our Thanksgiving was at Sandy’s sisters in Longview. Due to a bad stomach virus I did not make the trip into town. Instead I stayed at home and watched football. We would have gone to my sisters in Porter but her husband had open heart surgery the Friday before Thanksgiving. He had triple by pass and came through it in flying colors. In fact they released him the Saturday after Thanksgiving. He is slowly getting stronger each day and should go back to work hopefully after the first of the year.

December 21st I had a colonoscopy at VA in Shreveport. Those of you that have had this procedure know the prep for the procedure is relenting. Thank goodness I won't have to go through that three day liquid diet and cleansing for at least another two years as I got a clean bill of health from the doctor. The area where they took out some of my colon a year ago looked okay but they wanted the surgeon to view the film and I should hear back on it first of the year.

We had a little scare a couple days ago with our living room slide out. Sandy was busy in the kitchen making Christmas cookies and candy. I was watching TV and all of a sudden we hear the usual "five second delay" lady's voice that warns you about the pending slide out retracting or going out that everything should be clear and arms unlocked. I jumped up as Sandy was hollering hit the slide out button to stop the pending action. Fortunately I made it in time as the slide had retracted about two inches before I was able to stop it.

Can you imagine what would have happened had we not been home. Don't know what activated the switch. We hope this was just a fluke and it doesn't happen again. Will contact our RV dealer after the holidays to see what he might have to say about this. When we leave the motorhome, we will make sure everything in its path is clear until such time we get an answer to this mystery.

This brings us to Christmas Day where we had a big weather event. The system from the west that brought all the terrible weather for most of the US did its part in Lone Star. It started raining about 4am that morning and was the heaviest we've had so far this year. It rained hard all day and our yard looked like a lake as you can see in the photos.

By 5pm the rain turned to snow like no tomorrow. Hugh flakes started to fall and I told Sandy it probably won't stick because the ground was too wet. Well let me tell you before night fall it did start to stick and this morning the ground was covered with

about three inches of snow. It sure was beautiful to look at but it sure made things cold. Our low here last night was 23 degrees which froze our water hose. Fortunately we had our fresh water tank nearly full. Our high today is only going to be 31 degrees so it looks like this stuff just might hang around awhile.

We wish everybody a Blessed and Happy New Year.

Until next time. . . .MtnAire Travlers.