After 17 years of faithful duty providing piping hot water, our hot water heater started leaving puddles around the kitchen. At first we blamed them on the kitchen sink drain. I had to create a more flexible version of this sliding sewer hose many years ago. There has developed a bit of a gap when the slider is retracted but it had not been giving us trouble when extended. We were just not dumping water in the sink when retracted, “Let a sleeping dog lie.”
Continue reading 20180903: Wet Socks; Or How to Replace a Leaking Hot Water Heater:
20180828 Family and Friends:
We are “On the Road Again” after two days off to visit family, the Morgan clan, and friends, long time Bluegrass friends and renewed acquaintances from a chance meeting in Yukon Territory in 2007.
So first we joined the Morgan family for Sunday supper at a nice pork chop dinner. Conversation centered around Abe and Carrie’s oldest son, Gavin, who was recently accepted into the University of Edinburgh in Edinburgh Scotland. He will be traveling there next week. Younger brother, Layton, will be a Junior in high school. We must get by here more often than every 6 years. My, my how my grand nephews have grown and changed.
Continue reading 20180828 Family and Friends:
20180822 Ride The Hiawatha:
This year the Trikes have been neglected. Our longest ride has been 4 miles although we have had several of these. We had heard of the Hiawatha Rail to Trail when it was just stating in 1998. It had been in the bottom of my bucket list but it was so much out of the way. Judy’s plan to tour through the Rocky Mountain states is the perfect opportunity. We stayed in a nice campground in St. Regis, and this morning drove the Sprinter to the East Portal of the St Paul Pass, 1.66 mile long, “Taft Tunnel” under the Idaho-Montana border.
Continue reading 20180822 Ride The Hiawatha:
20180821 The Great Mountain Journey aka Rocky Mountain High:
Today is Tuesday, August 21, 2018, and Judy and I are going to make an extended trip around and through the Rocky Mountains including the states of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and end up in Texas for Thanksgiving. Now this is not to be the “All American Vacation,” where you can look at your watch and say “Oh! it’s Tuesday, we must be in Denver.” Instead It will be a “Meandering.”
Here is my definition:
Meandering Vacation: To drive a hundred miles or so and find a place to stay. If there is interesting things to do, stay a couple days. Then pack up and do it all over again. Have a general idea where you want to end up, but make your decisions on where to go based on chatting with fellow campers and your bucket list.
Today’s goal is St Regis and we are going to ride the Hiawatha trail tomorrow. We will be following in Judy’s dad’s wheel ruts as we traverse Lookout Pass. Pat Starr drove for PIE and liked to bid the Lookout Turn or Missoula Run. The Lookout Turn had the Spokane and Missoula drivers start at the same time and meet at the top of Lookout Pass. They swapped trucks and returned to their home base. Home every day. The Missoula trip went all the way, layed over for rest and returned home the next night. Home every other day.
How my Blog works:
I upgraded my website this weekend. It is acting kind-a strange, however. I installed a new reCAPTCHA routine so I can open up the comments function again. However, I did not get the defunct reCAPTCHA removed properly so if you just make a comment and then try to post it, the new reCAPTIA gets trumped by the ghost of the old reCAPTIA and you can’t leave a comment. However if you are a member and you have signed in, you get shuttled around the whole reCAPTIA thing and your comment goes right in. Trouble is, the reCAPTIA guards the registration too. If you are already a member you can comment, everyone else will have to wait until I figure out what to do.
I expect to try a number of styles for the web pages themselves, feel free to leave comments either here or on Facebook. I will continue to post a text only version to e-mail. I have recently been posting a link on my Facebook page also.
Ending note: We have stopped in Wallace to visit the historic NP Wallace Depot. I will write a few highlights and include a photo and then send this Blog to the publisher.
The Wallace Northern Pacific Depot museum was built in 1901 so it is 117 years old. It has been moved several hundred feet and across the river to make room for I-90.
It is beautiful and very worth the time to stop and see. W took up three full on street parking stalls right on the main drag. We spent a good hour in the museum. I still think the Ritzville NP Depot museum has done a better job of representing the look and feel of a railroad depot. Wallace has too much stuff displayed out of context. Besides, they forgot the crowning touch. Ritzville has a genuine Prince Albert Tobacco tin jammed down behind the telegraph sounder. Every depot when I was working the Northern Pacific had the exact same thing. An empty Prince Albert Tobacco tin wedged between the sounder electro-magnets and the wooden back of the sounder box. This is thought to amplify the sound of the telegraph so you can read the code easier.
20180813 Life After the Grand Adventure
“The Grand Adventure” lasted just over three weeks. We saw Buchart Gardens in full bloom, Orca Whale cruising along surrounded by a fleet of “Whale Watching Boats.” At least they kept a safe distance. We saw Porpoises, (Dolfins,) Bald Eagles, and everywhere Great Blue Herons. We got as far north as Lady Smith BC, and ran the gamete at Deception Pass both ways and both at high slack and low slack. High slack was smooth, Low slack was a sled ride through standing waves. The sledding was fun but the high slack offers a more predictable passage.
Upon returning, Judy and I each had a session with an eye doctor. My doctor confirmed that I have not progressed to wet macular, and Judy’s doctor shot her in the eyeball, patted her on the shoulder and said she was good for another 12 weeks. These shots are keeping her vision clear. I hate to think of the alternative.
Next on the agenda was a three day camp-out with all our old friends from the Plymouth Presbyterian Church of St. Helens OR. We all met at Milo McIver State Park near Estacada, Oregon. We had lots of food each evening followed by Guitar, Ukulele music. We joined an owl walk one evening and saw some bats, we joined the bat walk the next evening and saw more bats. Actually the morning after the Owl walk a Great Horned Owl parked in the tree over our rig and started hooting away about 4 am. We alll hiked down to the river and watched a man almost catch a steelhead. Everything but landing it. The fish put on a spectacular aerial show.
Here is a story:
There was once a young damsel in distress. Her camp wagon had this nifty water heater, but it would not heat water. Neither with gas nor electric. Three gallant knights galloped to her aid. They opened the heater, they tested the wires, they looked in all the nooks and crannies for the magic lever or toggle that would start the hot water flowing. Soundly defeated the knights retired to the courtyard and contemplated a change of career from “Saver of Damsels” to “Court Jester.”
Meanwhile the Damsel’s son returned saying “What’s new?” She told him about the afternoon spent looking for the magic lever or toggle to start the hot water flowing. He said, “ No problem, just flip one of these switches by the door…” {rim shot} the end.
Note: Any similarity between the characters of this tale and real live persons is purely accidental.
Now it is Monday and we are on I-84 headed for Umatilla. (Actually the Corps of Engineer park on the Washington side in the tiny town of Plymouth Washington. We are planning to hang out with my sister, Holly. On our way across I-84 we started hearing something banging on the coach, and affected by the wind. I finally traced it to the front quarter panel just in front of the left front tire. It had broken it’s fiberglass splots that hold it to the frame of the coach and it was flopping in the slipstream breeze. I cobbled up a rope and duct tape hold down for it and we are good to go again. Oh oh, Judy says it looks dowdy and the high uppity RV Resorts will probably reject us. Fortunately the Corps of Engineers Park managers didn’t notice the rope and duct tape side panel and we are now safely parked in a rather beautiful and green park and campground right on the Columbia River.
Link to the on line blog: www.dinsmore-enterprises.com/20180813-life-after-the-grand-adventure