Lake of the Woods

Cold and dreary late September in the Lake-Of-The-Woods area located in Minnesota. It is the furthest point north in the continental US. We actually had to cross into Canada to get to it.



Man! Was it chilly up there. We camped at Moose Lake Provincial Park in Canada. The park was actually closed for winter so we had no hookups, no water, no electricity. Around 10 pm, Ditto and I stepped outside and I nearly busted my butt on the running board. It was all iced up. But, we stayed cozy all night with the propane furnace.

The day was nasty. It was misty or light rain all day. The roads were not paved. They were surfaced with fine white limestone sand which made a mess of the RV.

Pumpkin is ready...almost

We've been stuck here at home for various reasons, but the time has not been wasted. We keep chipping away at fixes and refinements for Pumpkin.

We made our trip to St. Louis to get the anti-skid and cruise control problem fixed. Thankfully, it was determined to be the right rear wheel speed sensor which was still under warranty - by about three weeks! Anyway, that's done.

I didn't get to Cummins to get the generator fixed before going to St. Louis. So, while at Dusty's I decided to slide under there to see what I could see and I found the problem. There's a tiny little spring that closes the choke when the engine is not running. Once the engine starts, engine vacuum opens the choke and away it goes...supposedly. However, in my case, the spring had become dislodged and would not close the choke. It was nearly impossible to do without pulling the carburetor, but I managed to get the spring re-seated. The generator would start and run now. But, I wasn't very confident in the fix. The spring still seemed loose and I was concerned it might come loose again at the most inconvenient time. I decided to look into it further after I get back home.

So, back home and down underneath I went again. After a close examination, I thought I might be able to to wind the spring one turn tighter which should fix the looseness and reduce the likelihood of it coming loose again. The problem was I needed to remove the carburetor to do it and I couldn't do that without dropping the generator from its perch under the RV just behind the rear axle. I considered doing that, but after close examination decided I wasn't up to the task without putting Pumpkin on a lift.

I was not giving up though. I crawled back under and re-examined the carburetor mounting and decided to try to unmount it enough to get to the spring. And, I was able to do so. However, I couldn't disconnect the throttle linkage. I fiddled and messed with it for some time trying to rewind the spring one more turn and, voilà, I got it! It was now snug and closed the choke firmly, as it should. But, all was not good.

In the process of repairing the spring, the carburetor was more or less hanging by the throttle linkage. I guess the stress dislodged something because after put it all back together, the generator would not rev up to normal RPM operating speed, and as a result, would not turn on the AC. Damn!

I messed with it some more, but just could not see the linkage nor access it to do anything about it. I was going to have to let Cummins fix it after all.

I made an appointment with the local Cummins generator shop. I told them what had been done and what I thought was the problem. They said their shop rate was $140/hr. Wow! Oh, well, how long can it take to drop the generator out, fix the linkage, and put it back in? As it turned out, I cost me about $850! And, what made it even worse was the problem was precisely what I had told them it was and all they did was reconnect the throttle linkage. Damn, again!

The only consolation is, the generator works now.

So, now here we are, still tweaking things, getting ready for our next big trip. Joyce has been trying to "Joycify" the kitchen. She had me remove the microwave which opened up a big space for storage. Then she bought a large shower shampoo/soap hanging rack and had me customize it to serve as a dish drying rack. I made a 3-fan fan set from three computer cabinet muffin fans that run off 12 volts. They are mounted on a Plexiglas panel cut to the same size as the rear window screens. I strap it to the screen and plug it into the 12v cigarette lighter socket that's on the end of the counter. With the window open, the fans quietly blow air across our bunks. It's a lot quieter than the roof vent fan and we don't have to close the window when raining.

Now, if nothing else bends or breaks (including one or both of us) then we plan on hitting the road beginning Labor Day. I'll address that when it happens, however, as I don't want to jinx it by discussing it before the fact.

Another St Joseph Trip

We had a pretty good Memorial Weekend. It was a bit hectic getting ready, though. We had to take Allan's trailer down to Michael's to pick up Stephen's dinning set Michael had been keeping for Stephen for several years. Stephen's new home finally has room for his dining set, so we're making another trip to St Joseph and picking up the dining set was the kickoff for the weekend.

Just before the trip, I had to make a quick trip to the Branson VA Clinic.  On my return, it was raining pretty hard and Pumpkin misfired briefly which seemed to have triggered an ABS fault. I tried clearing the error codes, but the error comes back. The biggest inconvenience is that now the cruise control doesn't work. So, we wound up making our trip to St Joseph without cruise control.  I'm going to have to make an appointment at the Mercedes dealer in St Louis to have it fixed since it may be still under warranty (fingers crossed).

But, before a trip to St Louis, I've got to get the generator fixed. I have an appointment with Cummins locally to work on the generator. I hate getting old. In my younger days, I'd crawl under there and fix it myself (sigh).

One good thing, my new mattress is pretty comfortable and well worth the cost - finally.

While at Stephen's, Joyce helped him strip wallpaper and I helped him check out his underground sprinkler system and a cranky sump pump. The sprinkler system checked out pretty good except 2 or 3 sprinkler heads may need replacing and one of Stephen's neighbors built a privacy fence across the property line and sunk a post right through the sprinkler underground line. So, he is going to get to meet that neighbor soon.

What Happened?!!

Just woke up to the fact that it is waay into May 2018. What the heck happened to 2017? It was here just yesterday, I'd swear.

So, what's happened with Pumpkin since, uh, the last time I wrote about something that happened to Pumpkin? Well, not much. It took what seemed like forever for spring to arrive for real, not just when the calendar said. Stephen bought a new house in St. Joseph and closed on it a few weeks back. We took Pumpkin out for its post-hibernation run to visit Stephen. Stephen had stored a bunch of his "rough" stuff in our garage and my workshop, so we loaded Allan's trailer with that stuff and took Stephen's stuff "home". Stephen's new home has a separate drive built especially for an RV which was great. It was level and had a good power source, so we opted to sleep in the RV instead of carrying "stuff" back and forth to the house. We parked and unloaded the trailer and said farewell to Stephen's stuff. Whew!

Stephen's new place is beautiful. Oh, don't get me wrong, it is not perfect. In fact, it has lot's of fixing up that must be done. But, that's one thing that makes it great. Stephen will have lots of fun stuff to do as he puts his touch on things. After raking up a few tons of leaves, he plans to attack that ornamental pond, before it attacks him.

Izzy (Isabel), Stephen's dog, is very happy to move to her new home after having to stay in an apartment for so long, poor thing. But now, she has her own back yard and her own squirrels.  And her own stealthy, lying in wait, deck where she can rest, snooze, and when awake, keep an eye of the bird feeders. Squirrels can rob you blind if you are not alert.

We had a nice shakedown visit at Stephen's. However, I still had trouble sleeping comfortably. The mattress just wasn't getting it for me. So, I ordered a custom foam mattress. I haven't tried sleeping on it yet, but it looks good and feels good just flopping on it. We're heading to Stephen's again next weekend (Memorial weekend) to take another trailer load of stuff. So, I'll be able to give it a good test. This trip it is Stephen's nice dining table and chairs being held by Michael who appears tickled to be rid of. Also, we still had a couple of antique items at our house we'll stick in since the trail will have lot's of room.

All this sounds good, but how it turns out will depend a lot on how well I feel. I just got out of the hospital after an attack of UTI. To top it off, Joyce has a nagging back problem that has her cussing now and then. I think we're feeling well enough to get all this done. We'll see.