Sunday, May 11, 2003

Okay.. so we haven't left yet, but this is the week that we will leave.  Have spent the last week or so slowly getting things ready to travel. Have my notebooks done ( as least as far as they will be) and loaded in the coach.  Had the motorhome serviced last week and its ready, except for one problem.  For some reason the generator just quit, and will start, but run for only a few seconds. Gonna take it to David Riley tomorrow, and see what the problem might be. Hope the problem is minor, and we don't get delayed waiting on parts.  Donna talked to Lena today, they are packed and ready. Lena said she was gonna get some surgical masks for our use while traveling through Canada. :)  Mac says he has TWO spare tires.  He had one and some friend loaned him another one with a wheel.  The friend said he will need it.   I will be publishing this journal to the web site as we travel, and as I find an internet connection.  With the new laptop, I got 6 months free service with AOL. so I hope that will work in various places.

Monday, May 12, 2003

Getting closer to being ready to go!  Took the motorhome to Riley's Truck Service to check out the generator.  Very simple problem, just needed priming. We had let the fuel tank get below 1/4 last Friday, which caused the Generator to Auto Shut Down. Donna went to Eckerd's to get my Meds tonite, and asked about surgical masks.   None to be had, people are buying them to sell on eBay.   What a deal !   Y2K all over again.   But not to worry, we have plenty toilet paper.  They got the water well fixed today, so no worry about the sprinkler system while we are gone, and JD will have plenty water for the garden.

Tuesday, May 13, 2003

Okay, got quite a bit accomplished today.   Still working on my desk, and notes for Cathy about what I have going on.   Got a few more things loaded on the motorhome and in the truck.  Got all the gas cans filled for the yard man.  And, I am finally feeling a little better.  Donna asked me tonite if I wanted to hear her plan.  I didn't know she had one, :)  She said she didn't until today (LOL).  So, she tells me she thinks will get things done tomorrow, spend Thursday morning finishing loading and be ready to go about noon.  Guess that suits me.  About all I have left to do is load a few clothes, and stuff like that.  And all the computer stuff, of course.

Wednesday, May 14, 2003

Spent most of the day at the office.  Donna went to Tyler for her regular trip.  I took Cathy and Diana to lunch at Applebee's.  Got most everything lined out for Cathy to handle while I am gone.  The change over from RE/MAX to Green & Associates is virtually done, and will occur tomorrow, the 15th.  I am at my desk in the house writing this on the Laptop, and will publish it shortly, then load the Laptop, printer, etc in the coach.  At this point, we will take whatever time in the morning to get loaded, go to Jacksonville, meet Mac and Lena there, spend the nite on the Wal-Mart Supercenter parking lot, then leave early Friday morning.  I apparently misunderstood last nite what I thought Donna's plans were, No big deal.  Okay gonna do a test publish thru AOL now, then finish loading up the coach.

Thursday, May 15, 2003

Well, we are actually on our way to Alaska!   I didn't go to the office today.  Had everything under control there.  Talked to Cathy on the phone a couple of times, just minor last minute stuff.  Donna spent most of the day going back and forth from home to the office, taking and getting stuff, running errands, and just generally getting ready to go.  We called Austin, but no answer, so left a message.  Shelly called back right after Donna left on one of her errands.  Austin got on the phone, said "Poppa, I want to go in the bus", then he said "Bye, Love you".  Donna called back later, but had to leave a message.   We left Lufkin about 3:30 and as I am writing this we are the Wal-Mart parking in Jacksonville.  We have talked to Lena, they know where we are and will be here in the morning, bright and early, I imagine.  Donna went to Wal-Mart after we got here and got a few things to eat.  We had chicken fajitas for supper, and then played a game of Phase 10.  It's now about 8:30, getting dark, and Donna is getting ready to go to bed and watch TV.   Got Hannity & Colmes on Fox News, and she is trying to keep up with the Laci Peterson thing.  Plans for tomorrow are to head for Dallas, then north on I-35 to Oklahoma City, and maybe as far a Wichita, Kansas.  Donna won 10 to 9 (375 to 200), she really skunked.

Friday, May 16, 2003

What a day !!  Things really started out great this morning.  We left J'Ville a little after 7:30 and headed for Tyler and I-20.  Lots of traffic in Tyler, but we made it through there with no problem, and easy going on I-20.  Right on into Terrell , Mesquite, and then around Dallas on I-635 to I-35.  Headed for Oklahoma City, stopping at a roadside picnic area at mile 59 in Oklahoma. Nice little park, with covered concrete tables, lots of trees, but the wind was blowing about 50mph.  Some time about this time, Donna got a call from the alarm company that the alarm at our house was going off.  She told them to call Diana at the office and she would handle it.  Headed on in to Oklahoma City, saw where the recent tornado had crossed I-35.  Then it started raining pretty hard with tornado warnings north of OKC, so just north of the city we pulled in to a truck stop to wait it out.   After the warnings moved on to the east of us, we got back on the interstate to head on toward Kansas.  About 30 miles more we got into some more rain, so decided to stay over at a campground just outside of Guthrie.  Saw lots of old historical 19th century homes and buildings.  Almost all of the original 19th Century buildings remain, and have been restored.  Guthrie is the largest urban National Register Historical District in the USA.  We are at Cedar Valley RV park about 4 miles west of the city.  And that's where the trouble started.  Was raining pretty good when we got here, and the park had just recently re-done the electrical lines.  We parked in a space that was kinda muddy, so Mac and Lena moved up the hill near the office.  We decided we would do the same, called the office, and they moved us to a site close to Mac. (Site 13 -oops).  The rain had stopped so while I was working on the satellite, Donna plugged in the power cord.  Shortly thereafter, I noticed the volt meter was pegging far right, indicating too much voltage and also indicating we had reverse polarity.  I went to the office, told the guy there.  He said he would call someone.  He was reaching for the phone and dialing as I left the office.  We moved to site 14, same problem.  So, we moved back to 13, stayed there and didn't plug back in.   We cranked the generator, and turned on the air conditioners, since it was still pretty warm and humid.  The rear air would not work and we noticed that the Amp-Hour meter was not adding Amp-Hours to the coach batteries, indicating the batteries were not being charged by the Generator & Inverter.  This really alarmed us.  Next step was to call JD, our friend in Lufkin that works for Foretravel, to see who we might could call at Foretravel for after-hours advice and help.  He was not sure, but said he could find out who was on call, and get them to call us.   He then told us that when the alarm at the house went off, Alton and Carolyn were at the garden doing some work, and the police came and nearly arrested them. LOL  But, fortunately, it all worked out. 

A short time later, Bob Ireland with Foretravel called and he started directing me on how to check things to see what the problem might be.  We put the meter on various wires connected to the Inverter, which all show the correct voltage.  With the a/c not working, he suspected that we fried the a/c and maybe the charger part of the inverter.  He suggested that we use the volt meter to check the voltage on the two legs of the 50amp plug.  The first side checked out ok with 120 to 125 volts. HOWEVER, when we checked the second side, it showed 250 volts.  Big Time Bad.  Yep, we have probably fried several things.  So, like I said earlier, What a Day !!  What are we gonna do?  Well, first off is to get a reputable electrician to come out in the morning, check the power plug, and confirm that our meter is correct, and that the power supply in improperly wired. Then, inform the park owners and their insurance company, and establish liability.  Since we don't know just what all might be damaged we will probably go to the Foretravel Service Center in Liberty Lake, Washington to get everything checked and get repairs made.  We are about 1700 miles from there, but its only a few hundred miles out of the way.  Depending on repair time, and additional travel time, it may delay us as much as 4 or 5 days.  Well that's the story for today... Stay Tuned !!

Saturday, May 16, 2003

Actually I guess I would say that today went fairly well, considering all the possible scenarios.  First thing when the office opened, I informed the clerk of the problem, and she called the manager, who in turn called the power company.  A guy showed up shortly, who I thought was the contractor, but actually was the chief engineer for the local Electric Co-op.  As he was checking things out, and still scratching his head, another guy who was also very knowledgeable showed up and together they continued to check it out.  Turns out the second guy was an electrical engineer retired from GE.  They were both very close friends with the owner, an 87 year old guy that owned 4 golf courses and development in the immediate area.  They finally concluded that everything at the transformer and at the meter was exactly correct, which was of course the extent of the power company responsibility.  What they did find however was that several of the boxes, including the two that we tied into were crossed wired on one of the hot wires and a neutral, which meant that my meter showed exactly right about what actually happened.  They called the contractor, whom they knew personally, and after about an hour one of his men showed up, checked it out himself, and admitted the error.  I spent some time with him, got company owner name, phone numbers, etc.  I also got the numbers of the two other guys that confirmed it was the contractor's fault.  We finally left the park about 12:00 noon to continue on our way.  We decided to continue on to the Foretravel Service Center in Washington.  We called, and although their service department was closed on Saturday, Donna talked to a salesman and told him everything that we know of that was damaged.  He took the information, and said to call the service manager about 9am on Monday.  He told Donna that he could give us advice on going into Canada without backtracking to Great Falls. We will re-align our route, and probably skip Banff and Lake Louise on the way up, but go through there on the way back to the US.  The remainder of the day was mostly just driving, and we arrived in Goodland, Ks on I-70 about 8:30pm and traveled about 458 miles today. We are parked on the Wal-Mart parking lot for the nite, and only about 17 miles from the Colorado line.  Plan to leave fairly early tomorrow morning and continue on our planned route, just by-passing Great Falls.  I expect it will be late Tues before we get to the Foretravel Service Center.  Guess that's it for today.. Oh yeah, Donna won at Phase 10 again tonite, 10-9 and 335 to 165. She is just too dang lucky.