Cloudless Day in Illinois

Tuesday, October 21, 2014 

Today was just beautiful here in Bloomington.  Not a cloud in the sky. 

It is my brother, Dick’s birthday today.  He is 14 months younger than me and lives in central Florida near the east coast. 

At 8 o’clock this morning, I took the motorhome to Wherry Welding to have the owner take a look at the underside to see what needs to be done to strengthen it so I could pull a trailer with a race car inside.  Total weight would be around 8000 pounds.  He said it would cost about 12-14 hundred dollars.  Too much.  Asked how much to just weld the new hitch on and that would be about 3-4 hundred, so that is the way I decided to go.  Could always take it back later to add strength when and if we ever pull the trailer.  Don’t need anymore strength to pull the jeep since there is no tongue weight.

Didn’t have any plans for the day, so Dolly and I decided to clean the Sony SLR camera lens and inner mirrors of the camera.  I have a cleaning kit that comes with a small suction blower.  Instructions say to not touch the inside of the camera and place the camera into cleaning mode.  Did that and blew air onto the mirror and all around the inside. 

I thought I had it done, so went out late in the day to take some pictures.  This squirrel was curious to see what I was doing.

At first I thought the spots were gone, but they weren’t.  Went through the process again and found that I did not place the camera in cleaning mode.  When the “Cancel” or “Okay” screen appeared, I didn’t notice it defaulted to “Cancel” so I canceled the mode.  This resulted in the mirror not moving to where it could be cleaned easily.  Here is a photo with the spot.  You can see it in the upper center. 

In this picture, I used Picasa to clean the spots in the sky, so you wouldn’t think there were space ships over the house.

Will have to wait till tomorrow when the sun is out to test again, so stay tuned.

Time to watch the World Series.  I went to high school in North Kansas City, Missouri.  I am hoping the Royals do well.

 

See you later.

Beautiful Day but Sadness in our Cat Family

Monday, October 20, 2014

The other day, I posted pictures of our cat family and mentioned that they were getting older, not realizing that in just two days, our sweet Snowy would die quietly in her sleep last night.  We will miss her silent meow and sweet disposition.  She was 18 years old and lived a happy and long life. 

Snowy originally belonged to our son, Jim.  When he moved to an apartment that did not allow pets back in 2000, Snowy was left with us.  She then became a part of our cat family.

Snowy and Shadow spent a lot of time together.  Not so much with the other two.  I wonder if Shadow will miss Snowy?

We took him to the Vet to be cremated this morning and will add his Urn to the other family cats we have had since living here.

Was going to just sit and mope all day, but decided that since it is such a beautiful day, I would cut the grass and vacuum the leaves.

I think I will leave the driveway alone till more of the leaves have come down.  Can’t see doing this more than once.

Got the backyard cut.  In the Fall I put the vacuum connection on the mower.  It has a couple of leave bins to collect the cuttings, making things a lot easier to do.  Used to rake each Fall, but this is easier on the back.

 The front yard is done.

Felt much better getting outside and working in the yard.  Snowy is still gone, but made the pain more bearable.
See you later.

Quit my Job

October 19, 2014

In preparation for my trip this Fall, I gave notice to my manager at Advance Auto Parts the other day.  My last available work day will be November 22, 2014.  Since I only work one half day a week anyway, I may not work past my scheduled day this coming Wednesday.

I have worked at Advance since April, 2008, so my part-time job has lasted over six years.  When I started, I worked four days a week for 5-6 hours a day.  My time has slowly dwindled till lately, I have only worked one to two days a week for 5 hours a day.  However, there have been weeks when I have been asked to work because of sickness and vacations, making some weeks an unplanned four or five day week.  My work ethic over the years makes it hard for me to let the “company” down when I am needed. 

Well, soon I will not be on anyone’s payroll and can do what I want when I want, if Dolly approves.  Some things never change.  I am surprised she has approved my solo journey out West this winter.  She knows that I really want to go and I think she looks forward to a little alone time with her animals and family and doing things on her own schedule without having to always take care of me.  We shall see how this works out.   

I know it is important to do new things as we get older, and this will be a major one for both of us.  We have not been apart for four months since I did my Army tour in Viet Nam back in ‘68 and ‘69.

See you later.

Travel Plans are Coming Together

October 18, 2014

Dolly and I have discussed how this year’s trip would come together.  I want to go and she is concerned with leaving our cats and our pregnant daughter-in-law, Sarah.  The cats are old and need more care than when they were younger.  Three of them are in their teens.  Last year, while we were gone, Dolly’s favorite, Calisto had a bad tooth infection and nearly died.  Evan, had to come by each day for weeks to give him medication that saved his life.  Our grand baby is due in the middle of April which would be fine because we could be back by then, but she worries that something may come up earlier in the pregnancy, and she would want to be here in that event.  There were a lot of trials and tribulations in conceiving this child, so I do understand her concerns.  Anyway, the bottom line is - I go and Dolly and Fergie stay.

Snowy is 18	Shadow is 13
Calisto is 17	Chloe is 9

I am not worried about Dolly making it through the winter by herself, because she has the whole family here to help if she needs it.  I am worried about me going alone.  I know it will not be as much fun without her, but my biggest worry is cooking.  I have never had to feed myself and I am not sure I can learn to cook.  I just know I want to go and my physical ability to do this is getting less each year. 

I have even picked a date for beginning this year’s adventure.  My daughter, her husband and my two grandkids are going to Eureka Springs, Arkansas to have Thanksgiving with Evan’s mother and her husband, Bill.  They do this most years.   The plan is for the grandkids to come with me in the motor home and Evan and Kristi follow in their car.  We will stop at a campground for the night in southern Missouri and arrive at their home on Thanksgiving day.  On Friday, I will start my journey to Southern California at a snail’s pace.

Have several items that need to be done before I can leave for this year’s southwestern trip.  Last year I bought a new hitch for the motor home to pull the jeep.  The current one has problems that needed addressing.  I did use it last year, but it was not the safest setup.  I called a welding shop and made an appointment for taking the old one off and welding the new one on.  Hopefully, they will be able to strengthen the rear of the motor home so it can safely hold up to 7500 pounds.  Will know more after they have looked at what needs to be done to accomplish this.

I mentioned in my last blog entry that the jeep has a problem.  That problem is still not resolved.  Evan has received two transmission computers, and they both did not function properly.  They are now waiting to receive a new shipment and hopefully we should receive a third one early next week.  Not going to think about what if it doesn’t work.  Luckily, there is still time to handle jeep problems before the time to leave arrives, but I am a little nervous.

See you later.

LeRoy, Illinois

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

 
My Advance Auto Parts job requires that I deliver parts to two of the surrounding towns.  LeRoy is a small farming community of approximately 4000 residents.  I take highway 150 out of the southeastern part of Bloomington and drive east past the small community of Downs to arrive in LeRoy.  It is approximately 17 miles away and takes about an hour to do the trip there and back.  I only work 5 hours one or two days a week, so this is 20% of my work day.  Tough work, driving their truck, listening to music, and admiring the countryside on such a beautiful day.

I know when I am close when I pass these very large grain silos on the outskirt of LeRoy. 
The main road through town circles around a beautiful park in the center of town.   
Not too much in downtown.  No stoplights in town or tall buildings.

There is a small garage right on Rte 150 as you enter the town and is owned and run by the Hutton family.  This is my parts destination. 
See you later.

Beautiful Autumn Day and Jeep Repairs

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Today is just beautiful, so I went on a 6 mile bike ride down Constitution Trail.
  

I ordered a new battery for this old Gateway laptop I am using.  I am hoping the new battery will last three or four hours while I am boondocking this winter.  Last year, I could only go about a half hour before my battery went dead.  Couldn’t do much without being plugged into my in-house batteries.
 
I am also waiting on my jeep repairs.  About a month ago, the check engine light came on and it would only move in second gear.  Luckily, my son-in-law, Evan, used to be a Chrysler auto mechanic.  He used his investigative skills to determine that the transmission CPU had gone bad and needed to be replaced.  The bad part is that it is expensive.  He was able to find one on the internet for around $500.  Got it and put it in and the jeep ran fine but it showed a different engine error message.  Contacted the seller and they said to return the new one for another one, so Evan did, and we are waiting for it.  Hopefully, I get it in soon and have a couple of months to test the jeep before heading west.

Tonight’s sunset!
 

See you later.

Travel Expenses

Friday, September 26, 2014

Starting up the blog for the 2014-15 RV trek to the southwest.  Before getting into this year, I am going to post the expenses for last year’s trip.

We began our trip on December 30, 2013 and returned home on the 15th of March, 2014.  76 days on the road.  Our most western stop with the motorhome was Borrego Springs, California.  We drove 2183 miles going west and 2083 miles coming back for a total of 4266 miles.  I didn’t keep track of the mileage we put on the jeep.

Because this was our first trip west we spent a lot on gifts for the kids and grandkids.  Won’t do that this year.

We also had to replace the rear four tires near the end of our trip.  That was at a cost of $612 and we hope not to repeat this expense again.

2014 Gas - Motor home Maintenance - MH Gas - Jeep Maintenance - Jeep Camp fees Food - Dining out Food - Groceries Laundry Dump Propane Water Clothing Entertainment Gifts Misc-cash   Total

JAN $906 $152 $203 $0 $406 $88 $755 $0 $20 $9 $15 $273 $0 $257 $127   $3201

FEB $361 $17 $301 $6 $139 $71 $633 $10 $0 $41 $7 $48 $16 $243 $0   $1893

MAR $528 $612 $89 $0 $295 $9 $276 $0 $0 $0 $0 $20 $25 $161 $0   $2,015

Total Costs   $1,795   $676 4 tires, led lites $593   $6   $840   $168   $1,664   $10   $20   $50   $22   $341   $41   $663   $232 Tolls etc   $7,103

The next blog will be the beginning of plans for this year’s trip.  Same direction but things will be different so stay tuned.

See you later.