208 Nights in Waldorf
10/17/18 Wednesday
Up late as expected. Kim made a wonderful breakfast of eggs and sausage. I enjoyed that and didn’t realize the trip to Emmett would take over 1 hour. Anyway, by the time we got Waldorf ready to roll it was 10:30AM and I wanted to be at Carl's in Emmett by 10am, not likely. I followed the GPS and the trip was easy to Emmett. Carl had already told me that N of Emmett I would lose GPS directions to his house. Sure, enough I did, and I drove right by the road to his place. I made a wide turn in the road and headed back. Well I arrived outside the shop around 11:15AM. I was ready for the ribbing I knew I would get from Carl. He said he had already been up since 5AM and gone to the store to get some parts for his 5th wheel.
We opened the big shop door and backed Waldorf in. Carl's shop is amazing and really a treat for me to be in. I can ask all kinds of questions and Carl has an answer and a story to go along with it. Pretty fun. We opened the boxes for the jacks but left the Sumo Springs alone. We went to lunch at the Senior Center, I have heard so much about. We needed to be there around noon for the Pledge of Allegiance and prayer, also they select by row who eats first. We had a pretty good meal for $5.
Back at the shop by 1PM we figured that the jacks could be mounted on the frame that went to Waldorf's rear bumper. To do that we would have to dismount the bumper. Not too difficult but that meant removing the trailer electrical plug and all 7 wires. This task fell to me. Carl went to help his brother. I made a map of colors and pins and removed the plug. When Carl got back, we removed the bumper. It took him the rest of the day to retro the bumper and weld plates on for the jacks. We fitted the holes for the jacks to the plates and mounted them up. That was our day and I had a blast. I was so dirty with grease and road grime falling onto my face.
I headed back to Kuna a bit late. Kim and Nancy had decided with Vic and Brenda to eat at Kim’s new favorite place, a Peruvian cafe in Kuna, Lima Limon. Brenda being very efficient, and cautions had made reservations for 7PM. Because of me we didn’t arrive until 7:30PM and they had been cooling their heels for a while. We laughed and joked about the reservations the place had 1 other table of 2 eating. The food was fabulous, and we vowed to be back soon.
We were all setup to sleep in Kim’s extra bedroom. The bed was way bigger than Waldorf's comfy and cozy with the wood fire going in the living room.
209 Nights in Waldorf
10/18/18 Thursday
I was up early and determined to make it to Carl’s by 10AM. Since I knew how long it would take and the route, I made it by 9:30AM. No ribbing.
We backed Waldorf into the shop. Carl and I had the bumper mounted by noon and had another great lunch at the Senior Center. I spent the entire last half of the day putting the trailer plug back together. I can’t say how nervous this made me, but I knew how to do it and I had the handmade map. I was really worried Carl would think I was a dunce if I put it together wrong. There would be no way to test it until the whole job was complete. I worried and told Nancy if the breaks don’t work on Lucille it is my fault. Very unsettling....
Nancy read pretty much all-day Thursday, and I made it home closer to 6PM.
Rested in the big soft bed in Kim's extra bedroom.
210 Nights in Waldorf
10/19/18 Friday
I got to Emmett a bit after 10AM. Carl and I had plenty to do, mostly figuring out a way to mount the other 2 jacks somewhere on the front end of Waldorf. Carl was never happy with the 2 scissor jacks I had ordered because he said they would not lift the front of Waldorf efficiently. He wanted me to use a 2-speed jack that he thought we could find pretty easily. At lunch we went to a junk yard close by and looked for 2-speed jacks, we never found 1. It was time for lunch but not at the Senior Center, they were having liver and onions. We went to a nice hill top cafe near Carl’s place.
We studied quite a while after lunch then determined there was just no place that was going to work well, for a jack on each side. We settled on 1 jack mounted in the center of the frame under the engine. There was a sturdy cross frame member there Carl could weld to. He had 1 old 2-speed jack sitting around in his shop. Carl said I could have it. The jack was old and had plenty of use on the internal gears.
Today was the day we thought it would be best to move my cargo trailer from Carl’s place in Middleton to Emmett.
On the way we stopped at D&B Supply to buy me a powerful new battery-operated electric drill, so I could raise and lower the jacks. D&B was having its yearly sale on DeWalt battery tools. I got a 1/2-inch 20V hammer drill. By the time we picked up the trailer and parked it in Emmitt it was late in the day, so we called it quits, except for a beer and some chit chat about a problem Carl had with his 5th wheel. While we were in Middleton, I told Carl I would help him load and move his cargo trailer on Monday if he wanted to. He would think about it.
I helped Carl figure out how to make his TV play music and get more channels. I got back to Kim’s around 6PM. Nancy was happy she had been reading all day. Kim was off to her girl's weekend, where she was going to make an art project and learn to weld. Dave had gone to the mountains to collect wood and hunt elk. Nancy and I had popcorn for dinner and watched one of Kim’s movies "Captain Phillips" about the hijacking of a ship by some Somalians.
We made a fire and slept warmly in the big cozy bed.
211 Nights in Waldorf
10/20/18 Saturday
I never expected the jacks to take this long. Nancy drove me to Emmett and we talked with Carl about her coming back in the evening to eat dinner with us, somewhere he liked. That seemed like a plan, later in the day Nancy called to tell me her stomach was acting up and she did not want to do dinner.
Carl and I set to work mounting the 2-speed jack under the motor. Not a real difficult task but it took some figuring to find the materials in his junk pile and we had to weld on the frame. We drilled holes and I mounted the jack to the new plate. Time for lunch at the Senior Center.
We had already mounted the new Sumo Springs on the rear while Waldorf was backed in to the shop. Not a difficult task as advertised. Today Waldorf had his nose in the shop and it was time to mount the front Sumos. Not a difficult task either. We lifted the front and mounted the springs in about 1 hour. For the most part the work of installing jacks and Sumo Springs was complete. The only thing to do now was to test out our work and learn how to adjust the jacks so the rig would be level.
I backed Waldorf to a spot in the yard that was not really that level. I just wanted to try my luck at figuring out the jacks and how to work them. It was difficult at first and things didn’t go real smooth. I was getting the rig level but then the 2-speed jack on the front end failed. The gears inside had stripped, and the jack was not moving. This looked like a real failure to me. I didn’t see how the jacks could work without a front jack.
We pulled the jack out of its holder and disassembled it in the shop. The gears on the small shaft were shot and so too was the mounting for that shaft. Carl put on his thinking cap. I went home, to give the bad news to Nancy.
212 Nights in Waldorf
10/21/18 Sunday
Went to Church at 11AM, Risen Christ Catholic Community, mmm, mmm, mmm, don’t know where they keep the Catholics in that church. I could go on but I don’t think we will be going back.
After that experience we needed something sweet and comforting, Sherries on Franklin. Yup just the thing for a Sunday breakfast. Food is good, hot, sweet and cheap. We headed back to Kim’s place. I knew what we had to do.
It was now time to bite the bullet and change all the emails from Gmail to Outlook. It would be a chore because Nancy and I had had Gmail for much more than ten years. So much had to be changed, moved and fixed. Nancy was just getting too much crazy mail from all over the world and I knew the only fix was to change her email address and move all her contacts. But we have 2 phones, 2 computers and 2 iPads, lots of configuring and copying and deleting ahead of us both. Then there was LastPass to fix.
We did work at it for several hours and made pretty good progress. However, it was soon 4PM and time to head to Telaya Winery to meet Lee and Margaret for drinks and later an Italian dinner. We headed out, it would take at least 30 minutes to get there. We have always wanted to visit this winery, it looks nice and the location is very nice along the Boise River. When we got there Lee and Margaret were outside with their favorite waiter and having some laughs. We joined them, the wine was good and there were laughs all around.
Just down the river walk about 1/4 mile is Cafe Luciano's. We headed out after a couple glasses of wine at Telaya. The Cafe is small clean but not fancy. Our waitress was great, and we had more wine and fun with great food.
A walk back to the car 1/4 mile, we talked about all the tacky old homes stuck down by the river in Garden City over the years. Now worth many hundreds of thousands of dollars, so they could be turned into condos. Everything changes. Margaret gave us our Christmas present. Some yummy white rice and quinoa.
When we got back to Kim’s, she had just arrived from her welding/art weekend. She made a fabulous metal pot with lots of succulents planted in it a cool metal fish and a cute metal flower. Nice to be creative.
We watched a little TV and hit the sack.
213 Nights in Waldorf
10/22/18 Monday
Not a lot to do today on Waldorf today. Carl needs to be available to pick up Dona at the airport and he has some other errands to do.
We stayed at Kim’s and built a fire. We put our heads down in the morning and worked on changing more email stuff. Vic called about 11:30AM to ask about coffee?? That seemed like way more fun than fixing our stupid computers, so we made arrangements to meet at Treasure Valley Coffee for lunch.
Soon it was time to go so we headed out about coffee was about 30 minutes from Kuna. We met Vic and Brenda for coffee, soup and a small sandwich. Today is the day Kim had picked for dinner at Lima Limon, I knew I just couldn't be too full for that.
Back at Kim’s she was there off work by 4PM. I tried to get Dona or Carl on the text msg, but no answer. We knew Dona would have arrived from Seattle by now, but still no answer. What we wanted to do was to have them meet us for dinner. Kim and us chatted and headed out for another fabulous dinner at Lima Limon. I had what Vic had several days before and it was great, we kinda ate family style, I got family style full. When we got back to the house, we found out that Dona and Carl had eaten dinner about 20 minutes ahead of us only 100 yards down the street at the Mexican place. Dang...
A few minutes of TV then off to bed.
214 Nights in Waldorf
10/23/18 Tuesday
Today is the day Kim, Dona and Nancy have planned to go to the eMuseum, they are excited. I told Carl I would help him move some stuff out of his garage in Middleton into his cargo trailer and then to Emmett. He had some stuff here that one guy just could not move.
Actually, I showed up pretty much on time at his Middleton house. Carl was there working with a guy to blow out his sprinkler system. We got right to work loading the leftover stuff from his garage. The trailer loaded easily and there was plenty of sweeping and clean up to do, but we knocked it out in a couple of hours.
We hitched up the trailer to his 3500 RAM and headed to Emmett. Along the way we stopped at a pretty nice cafe for lunch, Carl hassled the cute waitress. He is funny. Next stop was the D&B. Carl needed to pick up some weed killer. Then off to his place. We parked the cargo trailer and didn’t have to unload it. It was getting to be about 2PM. Carl said he had fixed up the 2-speed jack, so it should work. I knew he could make a gear, but I didn’t know how the gear shaft could be remounted on the jack to make the whole thing work. Anyway, Carl had made a new gear and shaft and figured a way to mount 2 bearing races on either side of the housing to put the remanufactured gear shaft in. Actually, it worked like a champ. I liked it and I was very happy the whole trip to ID and welding scissor jacks to the rear of Waldorf was not a complete waste of time. Carl had fixed it up.
I drove Waldorf out of the tall bay and into the gravel yard. It is pretty level but not perfectly. I picked a spot and set some blocks and tried the jacks they all worked pretty well, and I got Waldorf level in a flash, but this was going to be a learning curve. Not all spaces are this level, dry or have good gravel. I'll work with it and make it work. The jacks are a much better system than we have now.
I packed up all my stuff and headed Waldorf to Kim’s, including towing Lucille. All went well, the new Sumo Springs seemed to work well, and my electrical wiring job seemed to be OK. Nancy and the girls were still traveling back from their eMuseum trip, but I got a text from Nancy saying take Waldorf to Dona's house for dinner. That was an easy re-route. I headed to Nampa.
I kinda parked Waldorf and Lucille in front of Dona's driveway because I didn’t think I should park in front of the neighbor’s place. Mistake, now Dona and the girls could not get in the driveway. Carl and I sat down for a couple of red beers, tasty and Carl had not had one for a while. We chatted on the back patio. Soon the phone was buzzing with a text from Nancy saying move Waldorf. I ignored it cuz the only place to move Waldorf was to the neighbor’s place, not a good choice. Nancy came to the back patio and said move Waldorf, so Dona can park in her garage. Dona said the neighbor was cool with parking on his space.
Dona had a good meal idea, but she needed more fresh strawberries and fruit. Nancy and I took her car to the Albertsons and got some more fruit. It truly was a tasty dinner and we had lots of laughs. The girls told us of some fun times at the eMuseum, I'm kinda sad I could not go. After dinner it was time to go. We fired up Waldorf but didn’t do our usual systems check. Problem.
When I parked Waldorf and Lucille, I took the keys out of Lucille and locked the door. Unfortunately, we didn’t take time to replace the keys and put the ignition in ACC. Now when we drove off the steering wheel was locked, and the car towed hard. Waldorf let me know by some idiot lights on the dash that his rear wheels were being over worked, as if on ice. It took about 4 miles to discover the mistake and get it fixed. Well just another case of not crossing Ts and dotting Is.
We got parked at Kim’s after some problems, but it all turned out OK and we hit the sack.
215 Nights in Waldorf
10/24/18 Wednesday
Today was kinda of a free day, but not really, we had to load Waldorf and get ready to go to Willard Bay UT. It was a free day in that I didn’t have to report to work anywhere, but then it was not free because there was so much to do to get Waldorf ready to go. This was not supposed to happen, we were supposed to be done putting on the new springs and jacks, 4 days ago.
There is not much to tell about this day. Nancy and I picked up some supplies for Waldorf, DEF, a breaker bar socket for the jacks, and some supplies. While we were at Trader Joes we bought some sandwiches and chips, we ate in the car. While we were having lunch, Kim Cafferty called. All is well at his place and he will soon be finished with the new house for his daughter and grandson. We chatted a while then Nancy drove off to complete our errands.
We didn’t get back to Kim’s until too late to do much prep work on Waldorf. That just means getting up on time tomorrow to complete the load out.
Sleep was good with the fireplace warming the whole house.
Tomorrow Willard Bay UT
216 Nights in Waldorf
10/25/18 Thursday
Up early with showers and coffee.
Kim got up to chat and see us off. It was a regular day, with the exception of moving our stuff out of Kim’s place, then we loaded bikes and kayaks.
We hooked up Lucille and were careful to check the keys were on ACC. There were hugs and good-by pictures then we were off to Willard Bay UT. It was good to be back on the road again. We were early compared to the day in mid-May when we did this part of the trip before. The day was beautiful, and the rig was in fine shape, the Sumo Springs seemed to be working well. Nancy took the first shift at the wheel.
Miles passed, and we needed gas. Wherever we were a front rope tiedown for the passenger side kayak had broken. It took me about 20 minutes to fix that and we were off again. Willard Bay just about 100 miles ahead.
Of course, when we got there the GPS got us to N marina when we really needed S marina but there was a space. We paid our $30 (no senior discount, shame Utah). We found a space and parking went pretty well. This will be the first time I have used the new hacks in a real situation. They worked well, and Waldorf was stable and level.
No one around to chat with so we covered up and went to bed early.
Tomorrow Hurricane UT.
217 Nights in Waldorf
10/26/18 Friday
Driving day. Not long to get ready. Lucille stayed hooked and there was only water and electrical. This was the first time we would be taking Waldorf off the new jacks. That went well except I am pretty green at remembering which direction to run the drill to lower the jack. I guess I'll get it sooner or later.
The drive out of Willard Bay is on 4 and 6 lane freeway, not much of a problem except of course it is rush hour in Salt Lake City. We would have to traverse it N to S and all the suburbs. We fueled up just S of Willard. Then I took the first turn at the wheel. Just pick a slow land and stay in it, commuters will pull left and pass us by. That strategy works well most days and generally when other folks are in a hurry. We didn’t get S of SLC until about 11:30AM. It was very easy to tell when we were out of the city the air cleared up a lot. Strange to me to think of SLC having such severe SMOG but they do.
Nancy took the wheel on the next fill-up and drove all the way to Hurricane UT KOA. The place is a reasonable KOA but still has work to do to be upgraded to a Journey Class. There were some snags. The office assigned us to #66 but the parking guy said we would never fit there so he moved us to #99. He helped us park and the space really was very wide open with a view over the top of all other campers to the red mountains across the valley. Very nice. Also, the space was between 2 rental cabins that weren’t very busy the whole time we were, we really felt we had a great big space. But then there was a problem, the space sloped way down in front and sagged toward the slide side. This is the worst of all conditions and it took all my blocks and full jack extensions to get the rig sort of level. I'm sure this was the most off level we have ever been, and we plan to stay 10 nights. We really had to settle for OK, not much else to do. I started on the electrical after the slide was out. When I checked the outlet with my hand meter it indicated the plug was cross wired black to white, it would normally still work but the Progressive Industries EMS throws an error on that and will not work. Fortunately, there was a plug-in for a non-existent space #100 which was done right so I just moved my plug. I told the yard manager and he said they would have the electrician work on it Sunday "NOT". Anyway, it never got fixed as long as we were there. However, the space and view were pretty much the nicest we have ever stayed in.
We had a nice fire pit but tonight was not the night for that, off to bed.