All posts by Gary

We are full time travelers. We live in a 34 foot motor home. We travel from place to place towing a white Sprinter Van full of my tools and two Cattrikes. I like to play bluegrass music and you may find me at Bluegrass Festivals in Arizona during the winter months and in Washington and Oregon during the summer. We will also visit our daughter, Renee and her family in the Austen Texas area.

Family Legends

20200217 Starting the spring migration:

February 17, 2020 Gary

I’m am not sure if this is the start of our spring migration or a winter relocation trip, but we left Liberty Hill, Texas three days ago and we are now in El Paso Texas. After three days of hard-driving and 560 miles later were about to leave Texas. The weather has been fantastic. The wind is been light. The sun has been shining and it is nice and warm.

Take a look at the address this blog was sent from. I have set up a mailing service exclusively to send to my blog list. This new application allows me to send out one email and it delivers it to each and every one of you folks. It also allows you to request unsubscribing from this list. I hope that you don’t, but I can understand if you do. I get a lot of spam myself. I promise not to share this list of email addresses. In the past I have had to break my mailing list into groups of 35 or so, assign them a group name, place the name in the blind carbon copy address list. The extra time needed makes it easy to procrastinate about doing a new blog.

Some of the entries in the address field are not really hooked up. I don’t have passwords. For example. Although the instructions say you can sign in and set up a password to keep someone else from sending comments in your name. Could it really come to that? I hope not.

Now to bring you up-to-date. We spent the last four months camped at our daughter and son-in-law’s Bee Ranch near Liberty Hill, Texas. We have really kept ourselves quite busy spending usually three days a week in boxing classes and one day a week in singing class. After my boating injury I have regained nearly all of my range of motion. The people we have met in the Texas Tremulous, singing group, And the 413 fitness club, are tuned to the needs of Parkinson’s patients and their caregivers. A couple of these fiends are getting their first copy of this blog today. Our boxing club group would have got a kick out of Judy and I setting up our own workout this morning. We were trying to get the hang of the punching mitts versus the boxing gloves without bopping either one of us on the chin.

Because the activities in these groups is tailored to help the Parkinson’s patient they are really quite valuable to us. We exercise our balance skills and we learn how to get up off the floor. We even practice “Tucking and rolling” out of a fall. We also spend about half of the time punching, kicking, stepping over, around and through various mazes the coaches dream up. Only now we are on our own.

With this new blog mail server you can reply directly to us and I can directly answer you, just like you are used to doing with email. A second option is to send a comment to the administrator, that’s me. I will review it with a fine toothed comb. I will check syntax, linguistic anomalies and colloquialisms that might clash with my style. If I cannot find the slightest reason to ban it, I will approve and all can bennefit from your insight and wit. ie. pretty much carte blanche. Just don’t mess with my mind. I have the ultimate ax that is up to any challenge, “Ban.”

Now a puzzle. What did Judy and I do 55 years ago come February 20th at about 8:20 PM for the first time in our young lives? AND What is so special about this year?

We got married (for the very first time.) This year it is on 02/20/2020 at about 20:20 hours (military)

Maintenance, Uncategorized

20200128 The water Pump

January 28, 2020 Gary 1 Comment

I confess I’ve been a little lax in creating blogs recently. I have been working on a very large project to revise the water purification system and the motor home. At the conclusion of the project. The pump that supplies pressure to the water system of the coach quit working.

A Relay. Provides full 15 Amps to pump, but the switch only handles a fraction of an Amp. — These relays are very small and can be hidden under vanities, behind studs or in void spaces.

Of course I did a bunch of troubleshooting, even enlisted Neil to help me. I finally decided that it was time to create a power source for the pump that included a relay. After several days of routing wires through the cupboards of the coach and hooking everything up, came the time for testing. I hit the “on” switch and nothing happened . I’m beginning to sweat a little, my handyman reputation is at stake. I pulled the cover on the strainer at the section of the pump and discovered that the section line was completely dry. Now there was water in the tank, but it wasn’t getting through the check valve. Logical conclusion: Check valve is plugged. Logical response: Remove, check valve. So I revised the inlet piping to eliminate the check valve. With my confidence renewed. I hit the on switch. Nothing happened. Now I’m really beginning to sweat. As handyman, I could be replaced, you know.

I think I do my best work. I’m asleep at night. The next morning I had a brilliant thought. We had been supplementing our water from the Tice’s house. The pressure from the hose could be keeping the pump from filling with water by blocking black pressure from the system. I walked over to the big house and turned off the water. You know it’s a little hard to flip the “on” switch with all your fingers crossed, but I managed to do it. Yes, it worked. Now I have to decide whether to put the check valve back in or not. I guess not.

The Sage Says: “What is the lesson to be learned here? It’s very possible to over analyze a problem. Occasionally you need to step back and look for the simple solution.”

Meanwhile, I will finish the two big projects I’m working on. The first is the adventures of the Abby Normal. The second is a detailed description of my new water system.

Sailing

20190817 This is a Bittersweet Moment:

August 19, 2019 Gary 2 Comments

The first week in May, 1974, Judy and I purchased a 23 foot Aquarius sailboat. Over the next five months, we familiarized ourselves with the bigger boat and spent the lot of time getting our new boat, now named the “Regal Jug,” ready for her maiden voyage. On August 9,th 1974, we arrived in Anacortes, Washington for our first cruise of the San Juan Islands.

45 years later, our son, Glen sold the Regal Jug to Cousin, Henry Hall for a token one dollar.

Judy and I spent most of the afternoon helping with the launch, finding lunch for all, and ferrying people back and forth to the marina.

It is easy to get nostalgic when you think about the many times our family traveled together in Regal Jug to the San Juan’s the Canadian Gulf Islands, Desolation Sound, Barkley Sound even to Pend Oreille Lake in Idaho and Trinity Lake in California.

Glen and Renee Showcase the Name of our Neew Boat- April of 1974 — Glen and Renee with Regal Jug, April 1974

When Judy and I retired the Regal Jug fell into a pattern of occasional use, once every year or two. She languished in a friend’s pasture for several years. We transferred ownership to Glen’s family. That gave Regal Jug a new coat of bottom paint and a new lease on life. Recently that family caught a bad case of two-foot-itis, but that is a whole different story.

Glen and his family had Regal Jug for seven years. They sailed her among the whales on Morrow Bay, and even sailed near Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay. On that trip, they were photographed from a helicopter and were able to get a fabulous action photo of Regal Jug.

Regal Jug rests at her moor-age, (by Glen’s hand,) as Henry, Glen and Judy finish up.

This now starts a new chapter in this boat’s life with a new family and we hope mny new adventures to keep them excited. So I will end this blog with a wish of bon voyage to Henry, Heather and the girls. May you always have an extra foot of water under your keel, a gentle beam reach to your destination and favorable currents along the way.

Henry Hall and Skipper Glen Dinsmore exchange the token sales price. Gary, Skipper Emeritus, watches.

See this on line at 
  https://www.dinsmore-enterprises.com/

Maintenance, Travels

20190805- A Walk In St. Helens Icky Woods

August 8, 2019 Gary

Judy and I are staying at the Elks Lodge in St. Helens Oregon. We enjoy walking about town but that gets old after a while. As we walked by the end of the path into the woods we remembered that we had walked this path before. We thought we knew where it came out over on Gray Cliffs Drive.

We plunged down the path into the thicket by a dried-up creek bed. The brush and grasses tickling our ankles because the trail was not very well kept. I started thinking back to a blog I wrote back in 2005, on October 24, (I looked it up), called, "A Walk In the Icky Woods." I am proud of that blog it's one of my classics. It got me to thinking of the difference between then and now. In 2004 to have a map with you you needed a GPS and a paper map to keep track of where you had gone. Now there are several applications for your cell phone that will present you with the latest up-to-date map and keep track of your exercise, your heart rate and give you an ETA for arrival at your destination. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against the maps or the technology. For all practical purposes the icky Woods are exactly the same. There are still spiders spinning webs across the trail, there are still small creeks burbling alongside the trail. And of course if your battery goes dead you are just as lost.

Here is a Northern Flicker. He lives in the “Icky Woods”

There is one other small difference between this blog and the 2004 blog. I am trying out a new software program called Dragon 12. Dragon 12 takes a dictation from my microphone and turns it into text. You will probably notice a subtle difference in the way I express myself because I do not speak as I write.

I still must edit the text after I get it to dictated. But that is surprisingly easy compared to getting rid of all the double strikes and extraneous letters that my shaky fingers produce on the keyboard.

So yes keep up with your technology but every once in a while go for a walk in the inky woods.

Post Script:

You can plainly see I did not get this out on 5th of August. So how about another story.

This is a story about a man and his wife who were concerned that their screen door was not tidy. The wife person complained of bugs getting through the screen. The husband person had a Laissez Faire attitude towards the whole project.

However, one sunny Sunday he had a couple of extra hours and figured he could knock off this little project in that time. The first thing to do was to take the door off its hinges. Next he spent two hours trying to find the little roller wheel jobbie to tuck the rubber spline into the screen door groove. Wife person directed him right to it.

The next task is to actually replace the fiberglass mesh. We needed a large flat surface where we could lay the door flat. That we finally found in the middle of the main salon. We had about 10 inches to stand in on each side of the screen door. We were both stiff and sore by the time we got the splines rolled into each groove. We wound up spending the rest of the day on this project. We propped the finished door up against the couch and went to bed.

To fit the door to the hinges to the door requires teamwork. Our arms simply aren’t long enough to reach and screw bolts and nuts together. On the first attempt we discovered we were trying to bolt that screen door to the wrong side of the hinges. An impossible task.

Each pair of bolts interferes with this mate so they have to be done in exact sequence. It is important to set the heights of the door on the hinges, and we misjudged it the first time but we had it dead on the second time.

This wonderful couple lived happily ever after with their beautiful new screen door. Woe be unto the person who puts a foot through the shiny, taut, new screen.

See this on line at 
  https://www.dinsmore-enterprises.com/

Art, Family Legends, Maintenance, Sailing

20190729 The Grand Adventure, 2019 Style. (“Afterglow”)

July 29, 2019 Gary 3 Comments

It’s Monday, July 29^th, and I feel the need to publish one more blog in this series. The afterglow for me is tinged with the scent of camphor from the sore muscle massage cream.

But first I want to tell you about time. That continuous creeping or headlong rush into tomorrow depending on your immediate situation. That is just everyday time. No what I am talking about is “Island Time.” The special unique Island Time of the San Juan and Canadian Gulf Islands that allows the shops to open about 10 am and close about 4 pm. That gives you time to set out the crab traps in the morning. There is time to slow down and drive on the opposite side of the road for pedestrians.

One particular example I just have to elaborate on. There is a fleet of float planes by Kenmore Air. They have the ubiquitous DHC-2 De Havilland Beaver with its 9 cylinder radial engine. They have a few of the Beavers they have upgraded with turbine engines and they have the newer DHC 3 De Havilland Otter with its long turbine nose. These planes land and take off right beside the boats entering the harbor.

The other morning an Otter landed near the marina on West Sound, Orcus Island. This plane was special, It was painted with an Orca whale motif. The youngish pilot in a crisp short sleeve uniform stepped down from the float and twisted a short dock line about the handy cleat. Two girls were walking in from the end of the float, one was carrying a carry-on bag. The pilot greeted them and asked if they were his passengers. “No.” They were headed for the ferry.

I kept tabs on the pilot over the next half hour as he walked to the marina office and to the parking lot at the top of the hill. I saw him checking over the plane and at one point talking over the radio. Finally a car pulls in at at the hilltop parking lot, and a man walks down the hill with a bit of carry-on luggage. The pilot greets him and he boards. Soon the plane is drifting away from the float as the turbine began to bite into the cool morning breeze. Who says that whales can’t fly. They can on Island Time.

The second topic is space. I figure that my 34 foot cruiser has about three times the usable interior space as Glen’s 34 foot cruiser. For five active adults that means carving out a little “My Space” for individual water bottles, clothing, cell phones and charging gear. Groceries and cooking/eating space dominate the cabin space during the day, but most of that is converted to sleeping space at night. This is an interesting time since we must simultaneously stow many of the cushions and assemble the rest into a mattress. We had things like the Guitar that had to move from the bow compartment to the galley. It all got put back together the next morning before we could cook breakfast.

This is Me! Glen is fully qualified as Skipper. I call myself “Skipper Emeritus.” Otherwise known as “deck hand.”

To round out the trip we saved the failure to the last 5 miles. Barb was at the helm and declared the exhaust pitch sounded wrong. Glen was trouble shooting the problem, I was hanging over the back rail listening to the water surging in the exhaust, when the over temperature alarm sounded. We shut down just off Port Orchard. We got the sails up and were able to maintain steerage way. We finally called the tow service and got a 5 mile tow to home port. The problem was traced to a plugged thru-hull on the raw water intake. The stuff never got to the raw water strainer. Probable cause; we must have backed into one of the floating mats of seaweed when taking a mooring at Blake Island. No damage, even the tow was covered by insurance. It’s just the disgrace for Abby Normal to g et towed home after braving all of the challenges so valiantly.

Arcturus' Travels