October 9, 2012

Don’t turn the Coffee on…until the Antenna is Down! Some of my friends are urging me to write a book. “You could make a lot of money” they say. Ha ha…Really? It always seemed to me that this is just the way my life is. But now I’m flirting with the idea and possible titles come to mind such as “Don’t turn the Coffee on…until the Antenna is Down” referring to our never-ending electronic issues or “Coup de Gracie (Allen).” Don’t hesitate to forward your suggestion if you feel inspired. The time we spent at home really flew by. We reconnected with Judy and Andy Herr, Jan and Vince Martin and Karl Redell as well as Chuck's cousins Carol,Cindy and Outlaw Jack Weigel. Chuck was pretty much sidelined by sciatica due to spinal stenosis - the same problem that drove me to surgery. He was able to get in two cortisone shots before we left which helped greatly. In the meantime, I was able to catch up with: my sister Jessie; two neices - Carm and Jaimie; friends Barb Schmidt, Carol Ketter Rosen and Dianne Schabarker Michael among others. The October 2012 RV trip back to AZ was far different from earlier travels. For one thing, Chuck wanted to take a work table and two work stations back to “the bunker.” These were disassembled, and the RV dining table was cleared and lowered to accommodate all of the heavy, awkward pieces. We also packed extra dehydrated foods and another most unusual category of items - reloading equipment. The powders, primers, casings and specially manufactured device used to fill almost every type of bullet. This is a top trade item according to Prepper Modlin. In addition, we loaded Chuck’s favorite (massive) chair which was retrieved from the basement by dividing it into two sections. The chair and numerous other items filled the couch. While Chuck was making the all-important last trip to Costco prior to departure, I was trying to secure all of this with clothesline which wasn’t easy - as the handles on the upper and lower compartments were about all I had to run the line through. With all of this extra weight on the left side, I was concerned about using our slide. If we put it out, would we be able to get it back in? and, if we couldn’t get it back in.…then what?? I made the executive decision that we would leave the slide in place for the entire trip – knowing that this meant that I would have to twist my neck watching TV from the front seat for a week. The first incident occurred when I drove into a gas station to fill up. When my Dad was teaching me to drive, he always said don’t worry about the back end…it will follow where the front end goes. It doesn’t quite work that way with RVs. I DID clear that steel stanchion with the front end. Just didn’t look back and down. Never even knew there was a problem until Chuck went out to pump and started shouting my name to come look. What was his problem? The problem was that the middle of the RV was smack dab against the stanchion and the stanchion was winning. Fortunately, we’ve had so many bigger issues that this teeny tiny little crease in the compartment was like spit in a bucket - even if it did spoil our momentary dent-free status. The next issue that arose was that gauges showed no oil pressure. I would never have noticed it and would have driven on without a care. As my father used to say, “you girls would drive a car until the tires fell off.” So true. When Chuck took over driving, however, he zeroed in on the problem immediately. We’d had the oil changed right before we left so there was a concern that some mishap had occurred in that process. All of the other gauges read normal (which Chuck confirmed with our Cummins QC1000 diagnostic device) however, so we knew that we weren’t overheating. We pulled into the old, and sadly familiar, garage in Gallup, NM where they inspected it and couldn’t find the cause. So – Chuck called the Fleetwood folks and learned that either a wire was broken or the gauge was bad. We could continue without repair or worry for the time being and the mechanics finished up just in time for us to have a quick lunch with Navajo Ranger Stan Milford, a dear friend that we met through our MUFON work. After lunch, we continued on to the Meteor Crater in AZ – something we’d kept missing as we criss-crossed the West. This gave us a day of leisure prior to meeting another great friend, former Navajo Ranger, Jon Dover, in Flagstaff. This led to the next disaster which apparently – even though I wasn’t at the wheel at the time – was ALL my fault. We’d had lunch with Jon and his family at the very nice America Inn in Flagstaff – which Jon had picked as there was room for RV parking. Unfortunately, I left my credit card there and this is where things started to really go South. We went back to pick the card up and as we were leaving, Chuck approached the portico at the entrance – the entrance which held a dirty little secret. The sign over the portico gives the heighth clearance BUT what it doesn’t say is that the next overhead beam is lower than the first one. Advancing because he felt confident that we’d cleared, we were shocked to hear a very loud and distinctive WHACK! made by our satellite dish hitting the second beam. It took approximately a half-hour to back the RV out, borrow the Inn’s ladder to get up on the roof and inspect the damage. The dish was loose but still connected to the wiring. Liberal amounts of duct tape and clothesline were applied to secure the dish. We weren’t very far down the road before it was clear that the dish had escaped -despite all of Chuck's efforts to fasten it down. That roadside scenery pull-off sure was welcome but now what? Without a small ladder to get him up to the point where the ladder starts on the back of the RV, it was too difficult for Chuck to go up. With one foot on the dolly and Chuck’s shoulder to gain stability, I was able to get on the ladder and very, very gingerly climb to and across the top in pretty solid winds. I now needed to cut the wiring to the dish. Despite my personal EE’s advice that there was no way I could get shocked, I closed my eyes as I cut each wire. After that, all that was left was to (not so) gracefully lower it over the side on clothesline. Gee – those things are pretty heavy! We stashed the dish in the car and were ready to get back on the road. The Coup de Gracie of our trip was, however, still ahead. We pulled off the road where we were to meet our friend/helper Travis. The plan was to transfer the heavy/bulky items to Travis' truck before we started the trip in on dirt roads/trails. As we left pavement, we went over what seemed like a moderate bump and all hell broke loose. I hadn't yet taped down the cabinets and something (a pickle jar or who knows what) went flying...marked by a loud crash. I went back to look and absolutely could not comprehend what I was looking at - hundreds of pieces of what looked like black glass...couldn't figure out where it came from until Chuck noted that the glass front of the oven was gone! That's a part we'll never ever find again. We transferred the desired items and continued in on the road that Travis had gone over with a backhoe. We thought it went pretty well until - to our surprise - we surveyed the RV body at the end of the trip. Once again, part of the back bumper had ripped out. In summary: We’ve landed in AZ. Total damage this trip....satellite dish, couple of broken cabinet doors, crease in lower compartment, wrecked oven door, back bumper realignment. Number of days of life left in the RV = dwindling!