It's April & It's Snowing!!!

It was a surreal trip.  Bright green grass coming up everywhere and pretty pink and white blooms on the trees.  It makes you think the sun should be shinning bright and the sky should be bright blue with fluffy white clouds.  Instead, it is overcast and alternating between rain, sleet and snow as I drive across Virginia and Tennessee.

Now it's morning and there are great big fluffy snow flakes drifting around us all as we are unloading.  Such a beautiful sight, except it's SPRING dammit.  Get with the program already!

The Wafflehouse....

Yes I went to a Waffle House!  We met up with some friends and they invited us to lunch.  Of course I only drank while there and the conversation was stimulating, but oh the yummy smells....I haven't been in a Waffle House in years.  Because of my food allergies I can't eat anything on their menu.  I had a great time, but was sooooo hungry when we left!!!!!!!

12 hours of Sleep

After our escapades yesterday we crashed for 12 whole hours last night.  Once we were unloaded I made a late lunch (brown lentils & baby lima beans w/ mint scallion sauce along with steamed green beans as a side).  After eating we didn't even do the dishes (paper plates mind you) we just left everything on the counter and fell asleep around 1630.  We finally woke up just before 0500 this morning! 

We felt rested though and spent the morning cleaning the sleeper.  I guess we both must have dreamed of those dirty dishes all night long ;-) because we tackled the sleeper with a vengeance!  Oiling wood, vacuuming shades, cleaning under the fridge, wiping down the walls, dusting under the spice jars.....

The sleeper feels so much better now that all the corners are all sparkly and squeaky clean I know I will sleep soundly again tonight.  Well that is if I don't dream of all the things I just thought of while typing this....hmmm, I really need to organize the lazy susan, clean out behind the TV and sort thru our books and magazines ;-)

Windy City

So much for easy going...I was on the phone talking with my mother when we got dispatched at 0030 to deadhead 200+ miles into the downtown Chicago area ASAP to rescue a load.  Sounds easy enough, we can do that.  Its a Temperature Validated run so Randy jumps out to set up the reefer and recorder, while I update my log, set up the route and get the load info off the C-Link.  This is when we discovered that we have been blocked in by no less than 7 trucks who have parked in a row in front of us!  Not one of which was in a parking spot of course.  After looking at the situation for a minute we decide that we only need one of two to move so we can squeeze out.  So Randy goes up and tries knocking on their cab doors.  Of course no one wants to answer and it takes him 10 minutes to finally roust one of the drivers.  Finally he gets one of them to move their truck out of our way.  I squeeze thru the opening, in he jumps and we're off!

Into heavy rain and high cross winds.  YEE HA!  I know that Chicago's nick name the Windy City is a reference to politics, but tonight it was easy to believe that distinction came from a different source.  It has been a while since I have seen tractor trailers with their hazards flashing traveling on the shoulder of the road at 20 mph due to high cross winds in Indiana.  Of course these were mostly high profile open air loads.  Still I had to travel most of the trip in the hammer lane as it was hitting me so hard on the drivers side I could barley keep it on the road from the right hand lane.  Even so I really hate when I look in my mirrors and I can see about 6-12" of the nose of our trailer.  Usually I can't see any of it since our sleeper is as wide as the trailer!  Of course we were empty for this fun ride too.  No weight to hold us down to the road...since we are only going after 4500 pounds I hope the return trip is calmer.

When I left Indy this morning it was 58F outside.  By the time I got to O'Hare 3 hours later it was a balmy 21 degrees.  BRRRRRR

Now we are trying to get out of town and have been sitting on a highway ramp for 45 minutes at a dead stop.  The road ahead of us was flooded last night by the rain and now is solid ice and standing water.  While we have been sitting here we have seen 4 cars spin out on the ramp in front of us and hit the cement wall in slow motion.   The cops finally closed that ramp too.  So we are all sitting on the highway waiting for the water pumps to do their job.  No bypass around this one...

Hmmmmm, a salt shaker just showed up.  Maybe things will start shaking now.....

In this photo you can see all of the water that was still on the road 

when they started letting us thru once the jackknifed tractor trailer 

had been cleared from under the bridge in the corner just ahead.

This picture taken was after pumps had been working for hours.

Yes that is alot of salt on the road in the above picture.  The salt truck went back and forth several times over this section of road dumping all of that salt and sand before the cops would let us get going.

New Day Same Old Icy Roads--Unfortunately

Nice Deer

The first time she showed up with all her girlfriends I was so excited I never thought of getting my camera.  This morning when they showed up I finally remembered (well ok, I was reminded very sternly to "GO GET YOUR CAMERA!").  Yesterday we had 5 of these cute girls all eating right below the window.  When I first noticed them I was talking with Cathy in the livingroom and started carefully creeping up the window to get a closer look at them.  I hadn't even noticed Cathy had left the room.  Here I thought I would be all sneaky like and watch them.  Imagine my surprise when I realized I was the one being stalked!  They were bobbing their heads, walking closer and closer all the while trying to see every move I was making inside the house...about this time Cathy showed back up with a bowl of food and asked me if I wanted to feed them.  I wasn't sure what she meant so I just followed her into her bedroom.  She opened the window and started calling to the deer who were just outside the window.  They had seen us moving thru the windows and followed us.  They obviously knew better than I what was up.  They walked right up the window as Cathy started talking to them and tossing out food.  One by one they all came up till they were all within arms reach.  I could have easily reached out and petted them!  It was so cool.

She told me how she has even had elk come up to eat the deer's leftovers and spend the night at the treeline just 15-20 feet from their bedroom window.  You don't see that in Michigan!

We took this photo our last morning as the fog was just starting to burn off the lake.  It was so eerily beautiful.

Kitchen PLEASE!!!

We spent the weekend in Harrison, Idaho with Cathy and Dad at their place, Razzleberry Ranch.  Here is Cathy cooking in her temporary "canning kitchen" in the basement.  This is in use while Dad finishes her custom kitchen cabinets for the permanent kitchen upstairs.  These temporary quarters haven't deterred her in the least.  We were treated to the usual gourmet treatment.  She is such a wonderful hostess!  I have to say some of the absolute best pancakes (blueberry and walnut) and cupcakes (cranberry and vegan chocolate chip) ever and vegan to boot!  Mind she grew the blueberries herself and ground the flour too!!!

Dad is trying to teach Randy how to make something square!  How to draw and cut a straight line, etc.  Randy isn't shy about his woodworking skills.  As he says,"...it will hold, but it ain't going to be pretty!"  Here they are working on one of the cabinet bases.

Later when I asked Randy what he did all day, he said he mostly absorbed information.  I asked if he thought he could do a base on his own now.  He laughed and said maybe after a few more weeks of watching!  First he says he wants to make a squire feeder out of scrap wood and see how that turns out...baby steps.

This is where the kitchen will be once the cabinets are finished.  Yes, that is a real working wood fired cook stove! She really uses it too.

This is where the dumb-waiter will be, the 2x4 topped square.  It will allow food to be moved easily between the basement (where the canning kitchen, root cellar, walk-in fridge and freezer are) and the kitchen.  Really cool design feature, huh?

Here is Randy starting the fire up first thing in the morning.   His parents always heated primarily with wood and he loved using the bellows again :-)

ME AGS System

This system is so awesome.  It has cut our generator run time considerably!  I can run both inverters, the TV, surround sound system, overhead fan and laptop without running the generator.  I also don't have to worry about over stressing the batteries since this system monitors them and then turns on the generator only when its needed.  So far that has been about every 8-11 hours.

There is one problem though.  I was just sitting here in bed reading an online book about companion gardening, the lights are off, the TV is quietly on in the background  and then VROOOM, the generator starts itself.  I swear I must have jumped a foot!!!  I was so startled I almost dropped the laptop.  It is definitely going to take some time to get used to it starting itself.

Sometimes You Have to Spend Money to Make Money

As I have mentioned previously our generator died on us about a month ago.  The generator end burned out and we have been patiently waiting for the new one ($2500) to arrive at ICT (Indiana Custom Trucks)  so we could get it fixed.   We have been surviving without it, but we never truly realized just how much easier it has made our lives and how much money it saves us.  The generator we have is a Kubota diesel engine with an 8kw Powertech Generator End (yes, I know the cover says 7000, be we upgraded it 4 years ago).  It only burns about 1 gallon of diesel every 10-11 hours.  Where as the main engine goes thru a gallon of diesel about every hour!  Since diesel is running us around 1.90 per gallon, it costs us about $4.35 a day to run the generator vs $45.60 to idle the main engine.  Since we have been idling that frigging main engine for the past month, almost continuously in this frigid weather, we figure we have burned thru approximately $1276.80 of diesel (I have the receipts to back this up!). Usually we would have only spent around $121.80 with the generator!  Big difference huh?  The generator is also considerably quieter and smoother running.  We have been steadily in the 7.1-7.2 mpg range recently.  But with all the idling over the last month included, the mpg is now showing 1.2!  With numbers like this popping up we kept a close eye on what we burned when we were actually running down the road to rule out engine problems.  So we have every confidence we're still in the same range and will see those numbers rebound quickly now that the generator is fixed.

Please remember as you view these pictures that we had just run thru an ice and snow storm to get here this morning so the truck is covered in salt residue.

Pulled the stainless box top off to get to the generator.

Removed the access panels.

Prying the old gen end off.

Now they need to get the engine out to work on.

Engine completely out of box.

 

New gen end (rotor and coil) ready to be installed.

Tightening down the rotor.

Now the Coil.

Finally all the new wiring is connected.

Since we were going to be in the shop to fix the generator anyway, we decided to add a few upgrades while we were at it to help save even more on our fuel bills!  So we went with a new Discover gel battery and a generator power management system.  These two will allow us to cut down considerably on our generator running time.  

The Discover Battery is very efficient, durable, safe and green.  Their batteries are non-hazardous, maintenance-free and non-spillable.  Their higher active material to electrolyte ratios provide longer battery life and are designed for tough applications and repeated deep discharging.  The thicker plates used by Discover protect against deep discharge damage.   They also have a faster and more efficient recharging rate than standard flooded technology.  With 99.9% gas recombination there is no off gassing.  Some we have talked to about these new batteries complain about the price being to high at $725.  Keep in mind these are the same individuals who may or may not have a generator and are still using the older RV style 8D batteries.  We were replacing  4 Optima Bluetop Marine Batteries we bought 3 years ago and cost us about the same as this new battery.  Considering the older flooded style 8D batteries run around $350 they are a little cheaper initially.  However, there is a huge difference in longevity.  Typically the 8D's need to be changed out every 12 months and considering we got 3 1/2 years from the Optimas, we still came out way ahead.  We are told to expect the same or better life from the Discover Battery as we got from the Optimas, as well as longer periods between recharging and shorter recharging times!  Sounds like a win-win to us.  

So with this information in mind we set out to find a power management system for our generator.  We accomplished this by calling our friendly ICT Service Dept Manager, John "Woody" Wood, who always knows what is on the cutting edge in sleeper power systems. (He turned us on to the Discover Batteries too)  Woody recommended the Magnum Energy "ME AGS" or Auto Gen Start Stand-alone System for coach generators.  He said it has been a very reliable system that is priced competitively ($425).  Basically what this system does is start the generator based on the inside temperature of the sleeper or low battery condition.  It also allows you to specify "quiet time" so you can comply with park and rally rules or to enjoy a quiet nights sleep.  This system is completely customizable based on what ever variable the operator wants to set and allows for more efficient use of generator run time.  It also lets us leave the sleeper for long periods of time without worrying about the coach batteries.

We told him we could put the bed up. But apparently he was comfortable.  

I still can't believe he fit in there!

On the right is the Wizard Monitor & Converter which charges the chassis and coach batteries when the generator is running or we are plugged into shore power.  In the middle is the controller module for the ME AGS.  Those six very little gray turn knobs at the top are how you set it.  Its a good thing you only have to set this thing once!  Those little buggers are hard to turn with only your fingers!  On the left is the controller switch.  Up is on/standby mode for when you want the system to monitor the coach and batteries.  The middle position is off for when you want to run the generator full time and down is for test mode.

Combining the Kubota Engine with the Powertech Generator, Discover Battery and ME AGS we will be reducing our environmental footprint considerably and giving ourselves that warm, fuzzy feeling that we are doing something.  While we are enjoying those warm, fuzzy feelings we also will be laughing all the way to the bank at all the money we saved by reducing the amount of diesel we burn through.

Lets take a moment to look at the numbers, considering the life expectancy of each of these 3 items, and compare their cost vs idling the main engine.

$17.26/mth battery (3.5 yrs)

$11.81/mth ME AGS (3.5 yrs probably longer, but I decided to keep it in line with the others)

$69.44/mth Gen (3 yrs)

All three total $98.51 + $121.80 in fuel = $220.31 vs $1276.80 a month.  A savings of $1155 a month!  Plus we don't know for sure yet how large an effect the new battery and AGS will have on these numbers.  I think that is money well spent.  What is the old saying?  "Sometimes you have to spend money to make money."

PS-OK I know alot of you out there that drive are going to look at these numbers and ask what about all the time you are driving down the road.  Well, we spend more time sitting than driving with this job.  It can be boring, but hey, if they want to pay me to sit and watch or wait for something who am I to argue?