Summer Travel Map

Saturday, June 30, 2007

Another good week

June 30, 2007
Broad Brook, CT

Let’s close out the week, which has been productive and generally peaceful.

Wednesday was a quiet day, as I did a few more things around the coach and Geri went off to spend time with Melisa. They had lunch at a restaurant in Tolland that we’d been to before and ended up doing some shopping with Jesse after he got home from school (it was the last day of school). Grandma always enjoys taking Jesse to the bookstore, so they had a good time.

While everyone was gone, I took the opportunity to dump the holding tanks in the coach. We’d been here since the 15th, so we were almost at the 2-week mark. The new See-Level tank monitors I had installed are working well, and we can see tank status at a glance right from the display in the hall. We were at 75% black and 50% gray, so it was a good time to clean them out. Usually, the percentages are the other way around since you generally fill up the gray tank faster with sink, shower and washer use, but we’ve been doing much of that stuff in the house so we really extended our timeframe. This is a good thing.

Since we have a macerator pump built in, dumping here is a fairly easy exercise. I carry a 75’ heavy duty garden hose dedicated for that purpose, which attaches right to the end of the hose from the macerator. A year-and-a-half ago, I purchased an adapter which screws into a 4” sewer pipe. Fortunately, Pat and Al’s house has a full basement, so I was able to run the hose through the basement door, fit the adapter into the clean out pipe, seal the washer pipe to prevent gas escape, and let ‘er rip. The whole process took about 30 minutes, 10 minutes to get set up, 10 to pump, and 10 to clean up and put everything away. As they say, it’s a crappy job but someone has to do it.

For dinner, Geri, Pat, Melisa, and Britt all went to Casey’s, the restaurant where Melisa’s worked for years. Alicia’s just started waiting tables there and she was working that night, so they had a good time. It was “all you can eat pasta” night, and leftovers were brought home for us to snack on. We had a quick thunderstorm in the late afternoon, but it didn’t get in the way of their plans.

On the “guy side”, Al’s uncle Charlie came over, and we ordered a pizza (which went well with a Dancing Bull Zin) and played 4 games of cutthroat cribbage. We each won a game, and Al pulled it out in the rubber match, although Charlie tried to claim a winning position with some argument about winning once and coming in second twice. We explained to him that it was cribbage, not NASCAR, but I think he was pretty well convinced of his position.

Thursday was a very productive day.

Al and I got an early start by dropping off his truck for detailing and then tackling the coach maintenance cycle. This involves changing the fuel filters (2), oil filters, EGR filter, and the oil, and lubricating the chassis. It’s a time-consuming process, and Al spent the better part of the day on the creeper under the coach. We took a break at lunch time to drop off a grinder for Alicia at the park down the street (she’s a lifeguard there during the summer) and picking up Al’s truck. We finished off the maintenance in the afternoon, with the 500-hour generator service (oil + filter, fuel filter, air cleaner).

While we were doing the generator, a mobile RV repair guy I’d called to look at the front air conditioner showed up. We’ve been having trouble with the front (there are 3 A/C units on the roof) for a while and, with the temperature rising, we needed to get it looked at. When it was really hot (over about 93°F) earlier in the week, the front A/C unit shifted to “heat pump” mode. This is a very bad thing. The tech looked things over and found that there was a missing thermocouple, which is a temperature sensor that connects to the control board. He put a new one on, even though he had no idea why one would have been missing, and it seems to be working at this point.

We also drained and refilled the hub oil on the tag axle, well, one side anyway. I’d had the driver’s side done in February when Massey’s in Phoenix replaced a bad axle seal, so the other side was a little overdue (I should have had them do it then but didn’t think of it). We’d have done the other side to keep them in sync, but there are two different axle covers on the two sides, and we couldn’t figure out how to remove the cap on the driver’s side. We knew we didn’t want to break something, so we held off for now. I have no idea how that happened; one more thing to research and try to track down, and then fix, of course. It’s always something! We finished up with a lot of clean up, and Al quickly changed the oil filter on his truck (he switched to the long life synthetic oil, but still does 3,000 mile filter changes). We wrapped up just as the day’s thunderstorm came through. It provided a temporary cool-down but, after the storm was over, the water on the ground just turned to steam and the temperature and humidity went back up.

While Al and I were working on the coach, Geri took Merlin and Maya Lynn to a local grooming shop for “tubbies” and a trim. They look pretty good, as their hair is growing back in after being cut way too short before we left AZ. They came home replete with patriotic neck scarves, so they’re all ready for Independence Day.

For dinner, we were in the mood for Mexican (well, Geri was and convinced the rest of us, not that it was hard), so we went to a new incarnation of an old favorite, Tacorral in Manchester. The original, long closed, was where Geri first introduced me to Mexican food almost 30 years ago (there was no Mexican food where I grew up). I’ll admit that I was skeptical at first but, like most things she convinced me to try, I got the hang of it pretty quickly. Since it’s a B-Y-O place, we brought a jug of pre-made margaritas that we picked up on the way. Linda and Wendell turned us on to these when they visited AZ in April, and they’re reasonably good and super convenient. And Tacorral’s always a bargain: dinner for 4, including their $2.50/person charge for supplying glassware for your B-Y-O: $46. Hard to beat…

On the way home, we stopped at the Bowers’ to see how they were doing in planning their party for Saturday (it’s a combined shindig for Mike’s birthday and their daughter Allyson’s graduation). It’s been stressful for them, but they are almost ready. We had a nice bottle of Merlot (pretty good coming from me, since I’m not generally a Merlot guy), but didn’t stay too long as everyone was getting tired, led by Al who quickly fell asleep on the couch.

Friday was also productive, starting with a good bacon-egg-home fries breakfast with Pat and Al. I took down the volleyball net that had been used for Alicia’s graduation part last weekend, and Al and I dropped off all the used motor oil from Thursday’s activities at the local auto parts store. Then we dismantled the borrowed tent from Alicia’s party and re-assembled it on the Bower’s deck for their party. The tent is becoming community property. After that, we replaced the steering arm on Al’s lawn tractor and he changed the blades, so he just had to mow for a couple of hours. Al really enjoys moving the lawn (they have over an acre), so he was a happy man. I used the time to tackle one of my projects that’s been neglected: getting rid of the old blinds and visors from the coach. I downloaded eBay’s TurboLister program and got most of the entries put together to put things up for sale.

Last night, we went to dinner with Pat and Al and the Bowers at a place Mike used to go to years ago: Unk's in Niantic. Before we left, we tried a version of Al's new drink with Tanqueray "Ten" gin instead of the Hendrick's, but it wasn't as smooth. Mike also brought over a bottle of Oregon Pinot Noir, McKinlay's, that was quite nice, done in a Burgundian style with light extract and bright flavors. Although it was a relatively long drive to the shore (remember, this is Connecticut, which is just slightly bigger than the Phoenix metropolitan area), we got to dinner within 3 minutes of our reservation. No worrys, though, as business was inexplicably slow and we had a nice table outside on the deck. I spotted a Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa on the wine list and, as expected, they didn't have it. Their excuse was more creative than most places, though: "we're changing our list and we don't have that one in yet" as opposed to "we just sold the last bottle". In any event, a Brancott Sauvignon Blanc was a reasonably good substitute and we followed up with an Alice White Shiraz (passable but just barely). It was seafood all the way around, but the menu had enough Portugese (lots of pasta and spice) influences that moving to a red wasn't an issue. I just wish the selection had been better. Several containers of leftovers made the trip home, as the food was good and portions were large.

When we got home, everyone was in the mood for some Port, so I dug out the bottle of 1977 Fonseca I'd brought along on our trip. Although the cork was a little weak, the wine was drinking nicely. I'm glad we drank it now, since the color was fading and the wine itself was turning toward what you'd expect from a 30 year old tawny as opposed to a vintage Port, so it was just past its prime and wouldn't have gotten any better with more cellaring. This was a bottle that Al and I picked up at Zachy's in Scarsdale, NY, years ago when we used to go there every year to pick up special wines for Christmas dinner. It's been following us around for a long time, and it made a nice finish to a good evening.

I’ll finish the eBay stuff this morning with weights and measures, and make sure I have pictures of everything. Al has some baseball memorabilia that we’ll post as well. I need to get this done today, as I’d really prefer to close out the auctions before we leave here so I can get shipping done. I should have done it as soon as we got here, in hindsight.

After that, it’s off to the Bower’s party, although I think we have another graduation party to stop at before then. It’s going to be a long day… :-)

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