Missouri River Camping
Faithful readers last found us in mid April preparing to put-in on several rivers in southeast Missouri for extended camping trips. We did paddle four days and three nights on the Eleven Point River in the Mark Twain National Forest. After taking off the Eleven Point we drove to Van Buren MO and camped a night at the developed camp ground at Big Spring. Then we bought ice and groceries and put in for seven days on the Ozark National Scenic Riverways. The water was relatively high, so we were able to put-in on the Prongs section of the J
ack’s Fork River and paddled until the Jack’s Fork converged with the Current River. We spent 7 days and 6 nights on the river, taking out at Big Spring. It was a very nice float. The flow was less than it was when we were there three years ago, but it was a very nice level. The weather was very nice for both trips. The temperatures were mild, and we only had some light rain at one camp. We enjoyed the company of our fellow trippers: Wayne and Lynda and Harry. For those who would like to read more here is Wayne's account of the trip.Hanging Rock State Park
From May 12 -17 we were camped at
Hanging Rock State Park, attending the annual spring gathering there of the Lumber River Canoe Club. Hanging Rock State Park is one of the finest state 
parks in NC and is only 30 miles from our house. For the next four days we paddled successive sections of the Dan River. The Dan River is a jewel among Piedmont rivers, and we always enjoy paddling there. It has enough riffles and obstacles to be interesting and requires some maneuvering. It has outstanding views with high bluffs and thick rhododendron banks. We enjoyed good food and outstanding companionship with our friends in the Lumber River Canoe Club. Don Meece wrote a detailed report on the trip.Down East NC and Lighthouse Tour
On May 27 we departed for a few weeks in down east North Carolina and the outer banks. Our primary objective was to attend a rally of the Southeast Country Coachers on Hatteras Island. Prior to the rally, SECC club members John and Lillian invited all rally attendees to visit and stay at their farm in Aurora prior to the rally. We ended up staying 7 nights at Old Hole RV Park,
their private 15-site park, which is only available to friends. We very much enjoyed their hospitality. During our stay they hosted a spaghetti dinner, a pig pickin', a fish fry and a brisket dinner. The nights when there weren't fancy cookouts there were plenty of leftovers. Our stay there coincided with the Aurora Fossil Festival. Aurora is home to PCS, a huge 
phosphate mining and processing operation. The mine produces ore which is rich in fossils, particularly sharks teeth. Fossil hunting is not currently allowed in the mine, but PCS trucks over loads of ore to the festival site so people can dig through them looking for fossils. They also offer bus tours through their mining and manufacturing facility. I particularly enjoyed the plant
tour, because I had heard a lot about PCS during my Air Quality career. They have a number of acid production plants and at one time were one of the largest polluters in the state. They also had the dubious distinction of being the most highly fined facilities in the state. Perhaps things may 
have improved since then. Most of the people in Aurora are dependent on the mine either directly or indirectly. I learned quickly not to tell folks that I used to work as an air quality regulator for the state. While staying at the "Old Hole" we made several side trips. One day we took the ferry across the Pamlico River and explored historic Bath, North Carolina's oldest town. On another day we drove to little Washington and visited with our friends Dave and Audrey. But mostly we just hung around the "Old Hole" and took it easy, listening to the juke box and enjoying the company sitting in the rockers on the front porch.Finally we left the Old Hole and drove to Hatteras Island where we stayed 3 nights at Camp Hatteras
in Rodanthe. We were camped on the sound side, and it was very hot and windy during our entire stay. There were about 20 other Country Coaches at the rally, and we enjoyed meals and happy hour with our motor home friends each evening. One night the club hosted a fish fry in the rally hall. On the next night we had an old fashioned weenie roast over a wood fire on the beach. It was very quaint and nostalgic. During the days we explored the OBX, mostly the parts south of our camp. We visited Cape Hatteras and climbed the lighthouse tower. There we saw a very 
interesting video showing the moving of the lighthouse almost 1/2 mile to it's current location. We also took the ferry to Ocracoke, where we walked around the island and visited the Ocracoke lighthouse, which is now open to visitors. We enjoyed a crab cake sandwich and a brew on the waterfront deck at the Jolly Roger Pub.
After the rally we moved about 15 miles north and stayed 4 nights at the National Park Service CG at Oregon Inlet. That CG has no 
hookups, and we were able to benefit from our solar array. From there we spent the days primarily exploring the OBX north of that point. We visited the NC Aquarium on Roanoke Island and the Wright Brothers National Memorial at Kitty Hawk. One day we drove as far north as NC 12 goes up the OBX to Corolla. There we climbed the Currituck Beach lighthouse. Finally, in order to celebrate the
high winds that we had been enjoying, I bought a new stunt kite, a Prism Quantum, at Kitty Hawk Kites. I had bought a Trilby triple-ganged stunt many years ago and had been
flying it some on this trip, but the Prism is a whole different animal. This video shows some stunts that Prism kites can do, and it is extremely impressive. I can do some pretty basic stuff, like loops, stalls and landings that are not quite crash-and-burns, but nothing like the stunts in this video. Check it out!
Finally, we visited the Bodie Island lighthouse, but learned it was closed for renovations, and we could not climb it. This put only a small damper on our quest to climb all the lighthouses on the OBX. Actually it was interesting to see it shrouded in scaffolding and canvas and to listen to the wind whistle and scream through the scaffolding. We'll catch it next time.
Lumber River Camp OutT
he Lumber River Canoe Club is a very active club with trips scheduled practically every weekend. A traditional annual trip is the overnight trip from Fair Bluff NC to Nichols SC each July. Some years we make this trip and some we don't. This year we were able to make it. The only bad thing about this trip is that we need to meet for the shuttle at 9:00 am on Saturday, which means we have to get up about 4:30 am. That's right 4:30, in the morning. That usually means we can't party very hard on Saturday 
night. We had a very pleasant paddle punctuated with frequent swim breaks. The highlight of the trip was Don's new antique wood and canvas canoe. Don bought this canoe a few months ago and had paddled it on some day trips, but not on an over-nighter. At some point early on Saturday he hit a submerged cypress knee and poked a hole in the bottom of the boat, whereupon it started leaking like a sieve. Don is a trooper. He borrowed a bilge pump from one of the kayakers and started bailing. I think he will be looking for someone qualified to replace the canvas skin on the outside of the hull.
We camped at a large shaded sand 
bar on river left fondly known as "The Oasis" about half way between the state line and Nichols. There was an intense but brief shower shortly after we arrived, which helped cool things down a bit. There was more swimming, an extended happy hour and a shared meal consisting of heavy hors d'ouevres. Dorcas and I, as well as many other of the old folks, crashed early and slept soundly. Sunday morning we cooked a hearty round of breakfast burritos, a riverside standard. The paddle to Rice Field Cove Landing near Nichols was slow and easy, with more frequent swim breaks. On the drive home we enjoyed another tradition: dinner at Skipper's Seafood near Thomasville with our friends Wayne and Lynda. Here is Don's account of the trip.
In between these trips we did a number of projects around the house and I discharged one civic responsibility. In years past by mid-July we would have already departed for our annual trek to the upper Midwest and Minnesota. This year however, I was summoned for jury duty on July 26. Bummer. I had been summoned earlier last year for a date when we were to be in the Florida Keys. I wrote a very nice letter to the clerk explaining our travel plans and our reservations and suggested a specific 3-week period which would be perfect and not interfere with any travel arrangements. They did postpone my jury service, but ignored my specific window and assigned me a totally random date. Luckily that date did not conflict with any plans. It turns out that my number was not called that time,and I didn't have to report to the court house. This time I figured if I tried to change the date I could end up with a worse conflict and decided to just roll with it. This time I did have to report. There were three jury trials scheduled that day. After sitting all morning and then going to lunch, about half of the pool (not me!) was called away for one of the trials. They never came back, so I don't know what happened with them. About 4:00 PM they said the other two cases had been resolved and we were dismissed. About a week later I got my check for $12.00. Such is our system of juris prudence.
Another project that has occupied much of our summer is our yard sale. To put it bluntly: our house is a mess. Dorcas and I are both hopeless pack rats. It runs in both our families and we have never been able to overcome it. We have stuff in boxes from when we combined our households more than 10 years ago. We have stuff in boxes from our offices when we each retired. We have stuff in boxes from each of our parents houses and my grandmother's house after they passed. Etc., etc., etc. So, we decided we had to do something. I am reluctant to just throw something away if it has some value. We donated some clothes and other items to charitable organizations, but we decided we would also have a yard sale. All summer we have been going through boxes, closets and drawers; pulling stuff out of the rafters and off the shelves in the basement and staging stuff in the basement for a sale. We scheduled the sale for Friday and Saturday Aug 6 & 7. We advertised in the paper and on Craigs list and put signs and balloons out on the road. We had the sale on our new concrete driveway (more about that later), which was perfect. Our road is a narrow dead-end road with little parking, but somehow most of Forsyth County came down our road and looked at our junk. It was a lot of work, but we pulled it off, unloading at least all the major/big items. We had a lot of traffic and cleared a little over $900. We certainly haven't solved the junk problem in our house, but we made some serious headway. Whew! I'm glad that's over! After we cleaned up on Saturday our friends Wayne and Lynda came over. We then dined at Foothills Brewing, had a few brews and attended a Winston-Salem Dash baseball game. The home team won. Life is good.
Motor Home Maintenance and Repairs
The tires on the coach were manufactured in Oct 2003. Motor home tires usually "age out" before the tread wears out. Conventional wisdom suggests tires should be replaced every 5-7 years, although there is a great deal of controversy and disagreement on this point. Some say you are courting certain death if you go over 5 years. Others say they have run their tires 10 years or more and to change them simply because they have a birthday is wasteful. The manufacturers waffle on the point but do suggest internal inspections of the side wall after about 7 years. In any case my tires are almost 7 years old. All my friends with 2004 coaches have just had their tires replaced, so I figured it was my time. Besides, my right steer tire had recently shown some abnormal and very serious wear on the outside corner. I called Bill Plemmons, the big RV dealer in town, and asked for their recommendation for a tire dealer and an alignment shop. They suggested Stokes Tire in King and Auto Spring Company in Winston-Salem. After long consideration I had already decided I wanted the same model tires that were on the coach now. This was unfortunate, because that is not a common tire and Stokes Tire had difficulty locating a set, at least from a distributor who could get it here within a week. I was in a bit of a time crunch with our upcoming trip. Stokes Tire finally located 6 tires, but they were not as fresh as I would have liked; in fact were not as fresh as he had promised when I ordered them. Two were manufactured in March 2009 and four were manufactured in October 2009. I really didn't want to buy stale tires, because they would have to be replaced again that much sooner (remember the 7 year rule?) But I had no choice if I wanted that model and wanted them before I left on my trip. So I took the coach to King to have them installed. I have never watched them install large truck tires. I don't know if they do it this way everywhere, but here it was a manual process. The coach was jacked at one wheel position and that wheel was removed. The tire was then removed and re-installed manually, meaning laying the wheel on the pavement and using tire bars and no iron tire machine. They could not spin balance tires of that size so they put a granular beads in each tire which will distribute as the tire rolls and provide balance. This process was repeated for each 
of the 6 wheels and took about 4 hours. I also had the brakes inspected while the wheels were off. They looked like brand new. The coach is equipped with an engine compression brake, or Jake brake, so the service brakes get very little wear. I won't say here how much the set of new tires cost, but it hurt. It hurt a lot.
A few days after installing the tires I went to Auto Spring Co. for an alignment. At Auto Spring Co they align wheels manually, the old fashioned way, rather than using a computerized machine. My coach has independent front suspension (IFS) and the camber, castor and toe-in are all adjustable. The guy put a device on each wheel with level bubbles and checked
the camber and castor. He used a rod to set the toe-in, measuring the distance between each tire. It turned out that the castor on the right front was off by 7/8", which explained the sever tire wear I had recently seen.
I changed the oil and filter on the engine, an annual project. This task is not too difficult but it is rather messy. The crankcase and the filter hold about 27 quarts. I have made the job easier by replacing the oil pan drain plug with a valve so that I can easily stop the draining oil and empty my pan. Perhaps the hardest part is filling the engine with the fresh oil. There is very little clearance between the oil fill and the top of the engine compartment, such that you can't simple pour the oil in from the bottle. I devised a funnel with a long hose, and stand on a ladder. That seems to work pretty well.
I have had problems with my refrigerator seemingly since we got the coach almost four years ago. In February 2009 the cooling unit blew out, releasing its pressurized contents and rendering the fridge useless. This failure was caused by the manufacturer using steel tubing that was
too thin and which would fail after a number of heat cycles. It was the subject of a recall, but the recall did not fix the underlying problem. It simply installed a plate to separate the explosive gas that would ultimately be released from the LP burner, so that when it did fail, it would (hopefully) not burn down the coach. Mine failed and I replaced the cooling unit myself with an aftermarket unit. It seemed to work fine for a while, but during the last 8-10 months it has cooled erratically, cooling normally for about a week, then soaring into the mid 50 degree range for a while, then cooling again. After much research and discussion with technicians, including the one who sold me the cooling unit, it was determined that this cooling unit had now failed. The cooling unit was still under warranty and the company agreed to ship me a replacement. The problem was that they were out of stock, and they could not deliver before my Midwest trip. CRAP! They offered to send me a similar rebuilt unit to install and use until I returned, after which
they would send me a new unit like the one I had bought originally. This would give me a working fridge for my trip, but would mean I would have to change out the cooling unit twice. An all-day job for me and not fun. But I didn't have much choice, so they sent me the rebuilt unit and I installed. it. It worked for about a day then began to not cool so good. After monitoring its performance for a few days and trying a few tricks suggested by the dealer, he determined that that unit was defective too. So now I am days away from leaving on a 10 week trip, I've spent dozens of hours messing with it and I still don't have a working fridge. We have no choice but to leave home with a large cooler packed with ice food, and try to have a new unit shipped to us somewhere on the road. Oh the joys of RV ownership! This story will be continued ....
The Taj Mahal Driveway Project 2010
We bought a 25' travel trailer in 2000 and 
started practicing for retirement. I realized after backing the trailer down my steep driveway and around a sharp 90 degree bend and the lower corner of the house the first time, that I never wanted to do again. It was too stressful for Dorcas, who was the recipient of my irate rants as she tried to keep me from hitting a tree or the house. Soon I hired a guy with a Bobcat to cut a loop around the west side of the house back to the street, making for a complete circular driveway around the house. I put down several loads of gravel. but never really finished it. It wasn't perfect
, but it was functional. One problem was that it was narrow, uneven and held water. It wasn't really a suitable place to park the coach. Consequently I usually parked the coach behind the house on the old driveway. That meant it was difficult to get the cars into the garage (notwithstanding all the crap in the garage where the cars would normally be parked; see topic above). And I still couldn't drive all the way around the circle because there would be the coach or another vehicle blocking the way. It was kinda like one of those little tile puzzles where you have move the tiles around in a frame to get 
them all in a certain position. It was also just unfinished. It looked bad, and I had plans in my head that would make it so much nicer.
So, after procrastinating many years, Dorcas and I decided to bite the bullet and finish The Driveway. We would smooth out the vertical transition as it rises to the street, pour a wide level pad at the bottom and build a decorative retaining wall on the bank next to the house. Folks who know me also know that when I undertake a project such as this, I tend to go all out and don't take any shortcuts. So it was with 
The Driveway. We ended up pouring 54 cubic yards of 3500 psi concrete, 6" thick with 1/2" re-bar on 12" center. As they say in the trade you only get one chance when you pour concrete. We put 48' of 15" reinforced concrete pipe under the driveway below the path where the gravel always washed out, with a formed concrete catch basin and cast iron grate. The lower pad is level, 24' wide and 35' long (short edge) to 45' long (long edge). It is wide enough to park the coach on one side and drive another large vehicle around it. In fact, I made the pad wide enough to park 2 motor homes side by side. We are also good if we upgrade to 45' motor home (heaven forbid!). I have also installed PVC conduits under the concrete for an electrical service panel and a gutter pipe. We included 5' stamped concrete aprons at the edge of the road at both the new and old sections of the driveway. There is a decorative stacked block retaining wall on the
bank between the pad and the house, with block steps up to the front yard. Most of the grading and forming was done by a contractor, but I put in a fair bit of sweat equity. The wall, however, that was all me. It was very hot and humid and the blocks weighed more than 60 pounds each. Seldom could a block be set without moving it several more times before it was right. This was certainly the most difficult home improvement project I have ever undertaken; much more difficult than our painting project last year. Perhaps I'm just getting old.
1 comment:
Holy cow. You new tires, alignment and oil/filter change. You have been busy. Really sorry to hear about the refrigerator. Good luck with getting it functioning properly again.
Travel safely.
dave & audrey
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