Yet...another project

Just what have we been up to this past week?  Well besides enjoying the company of family and friends, Billy decided to track down a leak.  Upon flushing the black tank, the interior of our basement has been getting a good soaking.  Fortunately, it is happening somewhere along the "flush" line so it is clean water.....unfortunately, Billy had to practically dismantle our basement to track the mysterious leak.  First thing was to remove a portion of the under siding, that took a grinder....eeek!  Upon pulling down the insulation, Billy found a dead mouse...(eek again!)... and a million acorns.  Yeah....acorns!  We are assuming those came from our summers up at the river property...where squirrels rule!  Next, he needed better access to the black tank so up came the floor of the basement. 

We had to remove this panel to be able to lift up the floor and expose the black tank.....

Here is is....Billy replaced the spray nozzle.  Not sure if that was part of the problem or not, but only want to do this once.  Where we found the actual leak....yes, WE...I crawled under the fiver too!  The flush line comes into the fiver and then splits to run up inside the wall where there is a "check valve" and then back down to the black tank.  Found out about the "check valve" by calling our RV Guru back in Indiana.  We had leakage where the line split and we suspected the "check valve" was no longer functioning causing the leak where the line splits.  Billy eliminated the check valve all together by placing a ball valve at the split which he can manually open and close as necessary.  Leak be gone...we are dry!  Now comes the task of putting everything back together....but that is for another day.
I'll leave you with this......

This, I believe is a Kingfisher.  He comes everyday and everyday I try to get close enough for a good photo....still not close enough...but I'll keep trying

Caught this guy taking a "fishing break" and scratching that itch!

Rain, Sirens, and OH MY!

Last Sunday night was quite the night.  Heavy rain, thunder, and lighting  continued into the early morning hours.  The weather was not threatening....just loud.  Come morning; however, an unfamiliar sound filled the air and brought myself, hubby, and the furballs fully awake.  At first, I thought tornado....but then I realized it was quiet no rain, no wind, no storm.  So I went to the window and noticed the bath house across from us had a flashing yellow light to go along with the sounding alarm.  I turned on the local news.....nothing about a tornado, but plenty about flash flooding.  It seems Cincinnati had received almost 4 inches of rain.  The lake here at Winton Woods was up.....way up....and that is why the alarm had sounded.  Have a look.....

This is the scene out our back window.....there had been no water there last night.  That am I'd say it was up a good 3 to 4 feet on the tree line and that was about 8 feet from our back window.  I didn't feel we were in any danger.....I think the worse was over at that point.  Looking around the park, I noticed just how bad it really was.....a deck overlooking the lake...one I had stood on the day before, was completely under water and the boathouse where you could rent rowboats, kayaks, and pontoon boats had water over it's decking as well.....scary stuff.....that much water and it came so fast.

This guy didn't seem to mind that the lake had been "enlarged"......

So we began our day.  We were going to be leaving Winton Woods and heading over to Precision Temp for repair on our On Demand Hot Water System.  We headed out around 11am.  Right at the exit of the park was a sign stipulating a road closure due to the flooding.  We had no idea where that road was....so we turned to the right to head out to the highway.  As soon as we rounded the first curve, we knew we were in trouble.  The blockade stopped us dead in our tracks.  To the left...nothing but lake....to the right a steep climb into a subdivision we knew nothing about....we were trapped.  We discussed the situation and I decided to head up the hill on foot and see if we could find our way out that way.  Fortunately, a park ranger happened by and told us he would lead us through the subdivision.  By that time....a motorhome had also joined in the caravan.  The ranger called the station and told them they needed to change the sign....as a lot of folks leaving were unfamiliar with the area and the name of the road meant nothing.  We were all just trying to get out the same way we got in!  We slowly wound our way through the subdivision.... tight turns, low tree branches, and narrow roadway....but we made it through.  I sure hope this area gets a break from the rain and can dry out soon.
We arrived at Precision about 30 minutes later.....repairs were completed as well as adding their "cold pack" to our unit.  The cold pack is simple heat tape....which we can turn on to prevent freezing just in case we find ourselves in unexpected cold weather.....it happens.


Ok DAD....pay attention....we arrived in Rising Sun Indiana around 6pm.  We are currently parked close to the Ohio river in a little park that my Dad recommended.  It is called "Little Farm on the River".  Of Course.....our journey to this quaint little park was not without its problems....stay tuned for the "rest of the story" in my next post.......

Repairs

As most of you know, we have quite a list of repairs for our fifth wheel this year.  I think we have decided to wait until early fall to make our trip up to Elkhart.  It will give us a chance to do a little "saving" for the bill.  With any luck, the diesel prices may also come down after summer is over.....but I'm not holding my breath on that one.  We are comfortable here at the AOK and being in town is a definite plus.  The only thing I'm a little concerned about is our ac unit.  If it should decide to "give it up" in the middle of an Indiana hot and humid heat wave, then we will be forced to head to Elkhart sooner rather than later.....LOL! 

Missing Comments and Firefox 4 and Repairs

Woke up this morning and fired up the computer as usual.....checked to see what all you kind folks had to say about my latest blog and "WHAT!!"  O Comments!  I had comments when I went to bed last night, "What the hey is a going on!"  I quickly went to my Gmail and found all the comments were still in my inbox, but they all should have been automatically posted to my blog.  After a little noodling around, I found out that blogger had apparently done some type of maintenance during the "dark of night" and put in some bad code....screwed everything up.  To restore the system they had to go back to an earlier time....before the bad code....and so a lot of us lost comments.  Apparently they are working on fixing all this mess, we shall see.
My other issue this am is getting used to the new look of FireFox.  I have been using FireFox as my web browser for awhile and I really like it.  I know where all the little buttons are.....ya know, the little house for your home page, the little swirly arrow for refresh.  I did the upgrade to FireFox 4 yesterday and now everything is in a different place.....the whole top of my web page looks askew to me now.  I know I will get used to it, but I guess at this point I just don't understand how moving things around made FireFox any better.  I have yet to explore all the new supposed "bells and whistles", but I doubt I will be impressed.  Has not anyone ever heard the phrase, "If it ain't broke don't fix it!".  LOL!
Which reminds me, we have a kitchenaid mixer that is about 30+ years old.  A real work horse.  One year I bought Billy a "new and improved" model....supposed to be bigger and better.  It was a piece of crap!  Right outta the box it had problems and after much debate, we finally did get the manufacturer to send us a new one.  Still the new just couldn't stand up to our old one.  So we kept the old one and gave the new one to our son.  Sadly our old kitchenaid bit the dust a few days ago...we were both really upset because we didn't know what to go to for a replacement.  But it was Billy to the rescue.....he got online and found replacement parts were still available.  He took it apart and found we had a couple of broken gears.  The new parts came yesterday and he made the repair and she is good as new!!!  YEAH! 

Wind, painting, and repairs

Thanks to all of you who left comments on the last post of my baby lion painting.  It is so appreciated to know that others find my work pleasing.  
The wind here today has picked back up...makes it difficult to be outside doing any activity.  Good news is it usually dies down a bit in the late afternoon.  Many of us have found a place where we are blocked from the wind and we have a "happy hour".   Lot of fun!

I turned my attention back to my old truck painting.  Here is a photo of the progress so far.  I just love all the textures and shadows.
We also had a welcome visitor the other day.  Our RV repair guys have come out here to work for the winter.  They are going to do some work for us on our tire blow damage.  They can do most of it here on site...the rest ( a bit of painting and decal work) can wait til we get back to Indiana this summer.  It will be so nice to see some of that ugliness disappear.  If you are in the area of Bullhead City, AZ and need any work done....we highly recommend these guys.  Great work at a fair price.  You can email Ron here... rec_spec@yahoo.com

Here we are at the Middlebury KOA.  Nice park....just overpriced like most KOAs, but it was convenient.  I have lived in Indiana most of my life and had never been to Shipshewana.  I enjoyed the history about the Amish and the area, but hated the crowds.  I think we spent about 3 hours there before we were both hot, tired, and overwhelmed by humanity.  Back to the fiver we went.....nap time!  Today we head back to the river.  Billy has a doctor's appointment on the 19th of October....sometime shortly after we will be heading west....we think.

 Here is a photo of our new jacks with the Plug-It-Right Stabilizers installed.  They do make a difference and we highly recommend them.  Big Foot sells Plug-It-Right.

A photo of the new heavier leaf springs being installed....we had springs rated at 3500lbs replaced with springs rated at 4000lbs.  They also re-packed the bearings....good move on our part because one of them needed to be replaced.  That is one of the things I like about RV America...the guys check out everything as they go making sure it is all in good working order.  Before we left, Ron the owner, got under the coach one last time just to make sure everything was in order and looking good.  We were also pleased with our bill....very fair for the work rendered!  They don't have a website yet, so if any of you need contact info drop me an email and I'll send it along.  RV America is located in Elkhart, Indiana.

Here is a look at the rear fiberglass repair we had done....again excellent work at a fair price.  They will also be replacing that metal panel.  I'll post a photo of the completed work next time.  Guess I'd better post and get back to those "pink activities" so we can get hitched and head down the road!

Repairs

Thanks for all the comments and well wishes on the storm post. It is so nice to know folks are out there thinking about us! We arrived in Elkhart safely and set up camp in the repair shop's parking area. The photo above is of our large slide. It was sagging in the center section, so they removed all the trim and decided that it had not been framed correctly to begin with at the factory. They removed all the old framing and replaced it with new. We also had our bathroom door frame re-done as our door had been sticking. Our biggest relief was the replacement of our convection/microwave oven. It had stopped working while we were out in AZ and I sure missed using it. Americana did, however, refuse to replace our bathroom facet. It has a defect in the satin finish--which I'll admit might seem trivial to some, but to us it is unacceptable. We had tried to get this issue resolved once before, but the owner of Americana had taken some steel wool and polished the blemish--which removed the rust, but not the defect. We made the mistake of letting it go at that time. Now that we were back at the repair shop and while our warranty was still valid, we decided to address the issue once again. The repair man put in an email to Russ Anderson ( one of Americana's owners) and he was quick to deny the claim. Unfortunately, short of taking him to small claims court, we don't seem to have any recourse. All we can do is let others know how we were treated. Needless to say, we no longer feel comfortable recommending Americana. It is sad that our relationship had to end on such a sour note.

Yesterday was another long day. We were up early getting the fifth wheel ready for travel. It was supposed to go to Al-Ko today. Our repair shop had wanted to get prior approval before making the spring repair. Well, turns out a lot of the shops in Elkhart close for holiday in July---Al-Ko is one of those shops. So, our repair shop decided to just go ahead and take care of us and they will deal with Al-Ko later. As a result, we now have 4 new leaf springs and while they were there my husband had them go ahead and repack the barrings. The photos are the guys working on our rig at RV America and the guy hiding behind the phone book is Ron Green, owner of RV America. They are all very nice and do try very hard to take care of all your needs. We had everything on our list addressed to our satisfaction except for two items. The first, our microwave. When you try and boil water, after about 4 minutes it will shut itself down. It will start right back up, but it should not kick out like that in our opinion. Ron was afraid to replace it because he was afraid the factory would not be able to re-create the issue and then they would refuse to reimburse him for the replacement. It has happened to him before. So, we are going to call the factory directly and try to get this issue resolved. The second, our leaky air mattress. Apparently, we have to call these folks directly and ask that a replacement bladder be sent. Ron did give us some goop to affect a repair. Unfortunately, my husband found out last night that the repair did not hold. I'll keep you updated as things progress on those last two items. We currently are at a campground it Michigan City, IN called Michigan City Campground. We have stayed here before and it is OK, but a little pricey for the amenities in our opinion.

Today was a very long day. The guys at RV America (our repair shop) worked on our fifth wheel all day today. The pups and I hung out in our new screen room. As you can see it did a great job of keeping them contained and comfortable. I had mentioned we purchased this at Wal Mart in an earlier post. The brand name is "First Up".
As to our repairs, they got a lot accomplished today on our "minor" list. They replaced our sound system "control" center, replace the motor in our Shurflo fan, checked out our microwave (they will call the manufacturer tomorrow for solution), in process of replacing tubing for our propane system, and checked out our shower leak. The leak appears to have "healed" itself, but they did double check the connections and made sure all was secure. Tomorrow they are taking our unit over to the folks who installed our leaf springs and axles. Our repair shop wants to make sure that they agree to replace the leaf springs which are under warranty. I have to say we are a little nervous about this, apparently they have had problems getting them to agree to cover repairs in the past. One good thing, Russ Anderson (one of the owners of Americana RV) happens to be here on another project. Hopefully if there is a problem, he can be of assistance in straightening things out.
We finished our evening with a trip to Olive Garden for dinner. Tomorrow promises to be another long day. I let you know how it all turns out..........

Thanks for the comments and the questions and keep um coming. I love hearing from all of you! Several have inquired about our repairs on our Americana. I'm happy to report that we will be taking our unit to Elkhart next Monday. I plan on "blogging" all! Stay tuned for more on that. Today's mail held our check for the items we sent to auction a few weeks back. I was not expecting much and I was not disappointed. The good news is it's gone and it won't be coming back. I know many of you have gone through this process or are soon to be going through it. I get questions all the time of "how I let go" of all that stuff! Well, I guess you have to be ready. I took a good look at all my stuff and realized that it was just STUFF! Some of it I could not even tell you why I kept or had to have in the first place. To me, it has been a rather "freeing" experience. As to the photos and sentimental items (like my son's first shoes), my mother has graciously offered to store them for me. But, I have been careful there too and I have kept those items down to a minimum. When my son arrives home, we will go through some of those "treasures" and see what he is interested in keeping and what we can let go. I'll admit it can all be a little overwhelming at times. That is why after liquidating my business last year I was just "to tired" to start on the house. We saved it for this spring. I now wish that I had not---I was on a roll last year and I should have just kept right on rolling, but that's life. Just take it one day at a time and sooner or later you get through it! I do know one thing. We made the right decision to full time. I love my little home on wheels and I can't wait to get back on the road again!