Mom's First Camping Trip!

My cousin Tina Young sent an invitation earlier this month to mom for a surprise birthday party March 30 for Dean, Tina's mom and my mom's younger sister. Mom wanted to go, so we began making preparations earlier this month. I was busy doing minor detail things to the bird, mom was busy figuring out what things she needed to take, although we were only going to be gone 3 days over the weekend. For one that hasn't traveled much it was more than she was used to, but she did a great job and we got everything ready.

Karen, my sis, and her husband Dean were going to go and take their 5th wheel. We had planned to park in front of mom's house and hook up to water and electricity. Unfortunately Dean was called to go to work at the last minute and had to leave for the rig. :( So we changed our plans a bit and we drove to Lubbock to pick up Karen. She was taking off at noon so we got to Lubbock about the same time she got home.

I got a call from Marvin Burrows right outside of Brownfield. They were headed for Lubbock also, so we ended up meeting them for lunch at Rosa's. We had a great visit  and finally got on the road about 2:30pm. We fought the wind the whole way there. We got to mom's house around 6:30pm...a little later than we wanted, but we had a good safe trip.

Luckily I had filled the fresh water tank about 2/3 full because we went into the house and the water had been shut off. The only thing I can think of is that the bills didn't get forwarded. Oh well, we'll have to deal with that soon and get it turned back on until the house sells. At least we had water for showers and washing.

Dean, mom's sister, called just after we'd got settled in front of mom's house wondering why mom hadn't answered her phone. As we were getting ready to have dinner, I told her that she was out eating with us and should be back home later. She said she'd try to call her later on. Little did she know that we were in town and would actually see her on Saturday.

It was pretty cool Friday night so we didn't have to run the A/C. We got up Saturday morning, had breakfast and just generally laid around relaxing until it was time to go to the community center where the surprise BD party was being held. We'd driven by the night before to make sure we had a place to park. I didn't want to get down one of Comanche's narrow streets and not be able to get out or turn around except by backing out. The cemetery was right across the street so there was a great place to park on the shoulder of the road next to the fence of the cemetery. Perfect!

Here's a few pictures of the trip and the party.

 Traveling Mama

Enjoying The Scenery

In the Bird

 Ready to Party

 Spying on the neighbors before the party

Ready to go

Mom meditating

Joy, Ann, Dora

Joy, Ann, Crystal

Birthday goodies

 Birthday Cake

 Crystal, Ann

 Bill, Dora, Joy, Ron

 Bill, Dora, Joy, Karen

Bill, Dora, Joy, Ron, Karen

 Bill, Dora, Mom & Karen

Dora & Joy

Joy & Tina

Robert & Pam

Pam & Robert

Tina leading Dean in...Dean is Surprised!

Surprise!!

The beginning of the story??

Somethings FUNNY!!

 L-R Bill, Mike, Pam, Robert, Tina, Tracy

 L-R Courtney's boy Samson, Tracey, Shelby & Daley - Rod & Teena's 2 daughters, Courtney & Haley, her daughter

 Mike & Rod

 Rod & Karen

 Tina showing Dean her cake.

Pam & Robert

Happy 80th

Mike & Alvin

Dora & Joy

June & Alvin

June & Dora

Reminiscing

Such a good picture

With her crown

 Dean giving her speech

 Shelby

 Karen, Mom, Dean

 Courtney, Bill

 Patsi visiting with Dora & Crystal

Karen and Tracy

 Crystal and Dean's friend

 Courtney, Haley, Karen

 Samson, Dean, Shelby

Shelby

Daley Cleaning up

We drove out to Bill & Dora's after the party so we could hook up to water. Four people in a camper use quite a bit of water with all the flushing and showering going on. I loaded about 75 gallons but by Saturday morning we were down about 1/2 way from what I loaded so I didn't want to take any chances. Bill and Dora have a nice farm outside of Comanche. They were in the midst of remodeling which is going to be very nice when they get through. They are getting close but still have a big job ahead of them. It's really tough to live in the house while the contractors are working, tearing things out and changing things up.

We got to visit with Rod, Tina and their daughters, Dean, and Bill and Dora. After Rod and family left Bill and Dora visited with us in the bird. 

At Bill & Dora's

New Kitchen...not quite finished

Tina caught unaware

Family pic

I'm gettin' sleepy

Visiting in the Bird

Visiting and munching

Got up this morning, had breakfast and Dora treated us to some just baked pigs in a blanket. We visited some more and finally was ready to take off. When your new to your motorhome it seems like you're always forgetting something and doing stupid stuff. Well, this morning wasn't any different. We got ready to leave, said our goodbyes and then everyone had to go to the bathroom. So we had to wait some more. I had started the bus so it would air up before I raised the jacks but then got distracted. So when we left Bill & Dora's drive there was this god awful scraping noise. At first I thought I'd drug the rear of the bus as we went across the low spot before we pulled onto the highway. I finally figured it out as we got to Comanche and realized I hadn't raised the jacks. God....I felt really stupid!! Luckily they just scraped the dirt and didn't damage anything.

So, other than stupid things, everything worked pretty well this trip. I might even learn how to operate this beast one of these days! LOL We had to fight the wind coming back, run the generator for the A/C. We filled up again in Lubbock and after doing the calculations we ended up getting 7+ mpg for the trip. Not bad fighting a head wind and side wind and running the generator half the trip.

Until next time.....

Overthehump

Scolded!

Patsi and I went to a Water Wise committee meeting this afternoon and one of our friends scolded me for not updating the blog. So I apologize to everyone for not being more Johnny on the spot with the updates.

We have been busy except when the wind is blowing really hard or it was too cold to work outside. I did get most of the fluids changed on the Sun Bird. The alternator needed new brushes but I ordered a new one. Replaced the belts and got the anti-freeze changed only to find out that my surge tank had begun leaking. So, I had to order a new surge tank. They recommend when you switch from anti-freeze that requires an SCA additive (provided by a filter) to an anti-freeze that has the SCA additive already in it, to drain, add the new anti-freeze, run it til you get it to temperature, then drain again and replace with new anti-freeze for the second time. This process gets most of the old anti-freeze out of the system. The surge tank insured that I do that. Only a $250 additional charge. Ugh!

I went to Las Cruces to the dirt track races March 1 to help Toby & Tommy Herring with their race car. I'm not a great pit crew hand but I can change a tire and check the air. I took the Sun Bird out for the first time since I swapped everything and was hoping that I wouldn't have any issues. The trip to Las Cruces went pretty well. I'd ordered two new tires for the front but they didn't come in until Friday morning, so I decided to gamble and go on the old tires. They looked good but they were 8 years old. From everything I've read, once tires get 7-8 years old you better start thinking about getting new shoes. Older tires tend to separate the tread (which makes road gators), or blow out. Either one of these situation would not be a fun time in 30,000 + pounds of steel hurtling down the highway on three legs.

I was pulling the 4 wheelers on my trailer behind the bird. When I hooked up that morning I checked the lights. Much to my dismay....none of them worked. Not even the tail lights on the bird were working. It was early in the morning so I said the hell with it, and took off anyway. I guess they started working somewhere along the line because in Cruces I had a local policeman behind me and he didn't pay any attention to me. Whew!

Anyway, I made it to Cruces fine. The last time I came here to the races they were also having the Chile Challenge, a 4x4 wheeling event, and the fairgrounds where the race track is, was full of campers. We didn't get a spot with hookups that time, plus it was very cold. This time I had the pick of the place as there were only 3 other campers on the whole grounds and it was very nice weather. I got hooked up before I went out to the pits.

Toby raced that evening and qualified for the A-Main on Sunday. That meant that he wouldn't have to race on Saturday. For Tommy and I, that meant that we didn't have any work to do during the races and we could sit back, relax and enjoy the races....which we did. The only problem we had was Friday night when the races were finished we realized we didn't have any hot water in the coach. It was after midnight so I didn't want to try and figure it out.

I figured it out Saturday after we'd gone into town to Toby's room and got a shower. Turned out it was a low water reset but it took me a while to find it. After that everything worked pretty good. I checked all the lights in the rear and finally got them to work...sort of. LOL I think my biggest problem with the lights are the design and how much dirt and crud they collect because they aren't sealed from all the road grime that gets thrown up while going down the road.

Toby missed his setup on Sunday and didn't do so as well as he'd hoped. When I say missed his setup, it means he misread the track conditions and had the wrong tires on his car. But, in racing, if you get through the race and don't tear anything up, it's a good day. So, he had a good day. I drove home that night and made it home about midnight.

I changed the muffler on the coach to one that is a little more free flowing and doesn't hold as much back pressure on the engine. The old muffler outlet was offset to the driver side of the coach a bit and the new muffler was right in the middle. The exhaust tip wouldn't line up with the cutout in the rear hood panel so I had to fabricate an offset. I cut a 45 degree piece and created a small dog leg in the pipe so the tip would line up. I lucked out and didn't have to do it more than once.

The transmission temperature gauge hasn't worked since we bought the coach. I've been reading the manual, several rv forums, trying to figure out what might be wrong with the temp gauge. A few days ago I took the dash loose and looked behind at all the wires to the gauges but didn't see anything really noticeable. I built me some ramps to drive the bus upon so I could move underneath better but still couldn't see anything that looked out of the ordinary. I finally looked behind the dash again and tried to find out if I had power to the gauge. In doing so I pulled one of the wires loose to check it and notice that another wire wasn't connected, but I hadn't pulled it loose. Hmmm?? I got everything connected like it was supposed to be, fired up the bus, and lo and behold....the gauge worked. Patsi and I took the bus for a spin just to make sure everything worked.

Our first real trip will be in a few weeks when we take mom to Comanche to attend her younger sister's birthday party. It's supposed to be a surprise BD party but I'm not sure that is going to happen. We'll see.

Mom has been doing much better. She had a tough time there for a while. Blood pressure got too high, didn't feel well, and was just kind of generally messed up. But the weather got better, she began to feel better, got the blood pressure issue under control, and she's got new teeth on the way. So things are looking up. We've been taking her to the Senior Center 3 times a week to eat lunch and she's been meeting a few people.

This will be our logo that we plan to put on the front of the bird.....

The Zia symbol part will probably be a maroon to match the trim on the bus.

So, until next time....

Overthehump