A closet full of skeletons

We are parked at the Elks Lodge in San Jose, California (map). This is a frequent stop for us, perhaps our "most usual" parking spot in the bay area, due to its easy access to transit and its proximity to downtown San Jose, where we used to live and where we still own a condominium that we rent out. It's a little pricey here, at $18 per night, so we often stay elsewhere if we don't need the 50-amp power, but on this visit we're on a mission.

Long-time readers may know that we are "all-in" full-timers: we have no "home base" and no permanent home waiting in the wings. We kept the condo here strictly as an income property, and to hold a chip in the real estate game as a hedge against runaway property inflation for that day in the distant future when we might settle down again, in places unknown. So far, of course, that inflation has not happened, and, in fact, the place is worth more or less exactly what we paid for it ten years ago.

Our dirty little secret, though, has been that we kept a small storage closet here for ourselves. It came with the condo when we bought it, but it is a separate space, accessed through the common parking garage. We didn't even disclose its existence to the tenant or management company. It's pretty small, at just 3½ by 5¾ feet, but it afforded us the opportunity to store a handful of things we just could not get rid of, but either did not need or could not fit on the bus. For example, several banker's boxes worth of company records from the business Louise sold, which needed to be kept, for tax reasons, for seven years. Similarly, records from sales of previous property each of us owned, and our respective divorces, also needed to be stored for the IRS-mandated seven years.

Here we are, though, at the 5½ year mark of living full-time aboard Odyssey. This tax season marks the seventh year since the business was sold, and we are well past that on any previous real property or former spouses, and the banker's boxes of records can go to the shredder. And so it is that our "excuse" for keeping a storage closet of any sort has ended, and the realization has dawned that we could be making a few extra bucks every month by renting the thing out to someone else in the building (our own tenant, to whom we offered first refusal, does not want it).

Now the reality, of course, is that since we just had to keep the closet for record storage, and there was some extra room in there, we ended up filling it to the brim with things that, for one reason or another, we could not part with before we hit the road, but could not take with us. Mostly, the reasons were emotional attachment: Louise's family silver, handed down from her grandparents. Award plaques and other keepsakes we each had earned over the course of an entire career. A nearly complete set of Waterford crystal, a poor choice for bus (or boat) use, given to me by my parents at the time of my first marriage. Books inscribed by the people who presented them to us as gifts -- sometimes the authors. Stuffed toy animals from our childhood. The antique lacquered chest that had belonged to Louise's grandfather.

There are also items of less emotional content, kept for more practical reasons. The nearly brand-new 6' stepladder we bought for household maintenance in the condo. A carpet knee-kicker. Extra pieces of carpet and vinyl flooring, as well as leftover plumbing and electrical items from the complete renovation we did before we moved in. Even leftover paint, all kept in the name of maintenance of the unit as a rental property. Leftover bits of the bus conversion we did not need to carry, like the base stand for the TV, which we instead mounted on a swing-arm, or the 6-gallon air compressor that got repaired after we were forced to replace it with something better, and even an extra chain and sprockets for the Suzuki motorcycles we no longer carry.

Somehow, though, over the course of more than five years, our memories of what was really in there had grown dim, and the sheer scope of the project to empty it and move on did not fully dawn until we were halfway into the excavation. What we had remembered more clearly was the enormous amount of downsizing we had done before we moved onto the bus. We sold or gave away everything, or so we had remembered. Dozens of lineal feet of books, decades of accumulated furniture, a lifetime of knick-knacks, tons of silverware, cookware, glassware, stoneware, outerwear, everywhere.

Much of that process, too, had been hard. Selling the roll-top desk that I got as a young teen. Ridding myself of textbooks that I had accumulated through graduate school, college, and even high school, their wealth of information made obsolete by the Internet and the passing of time -- ten elements have been added to the Periodic Table since my textbooks were published. Parting with tools I had collected for nearly four decades. Most of the hard work, I thought, had been done.

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth: the things that were simply too hard to part with, contained too many memories, ultimately went into the closet that "we had to have anyway." And so it is a closet full of skeletons, the "things" that own us, rather than the other way around, making a mockery of the word "possessions." We are determined to face them down, and live the life we have chosen, unfettered by closets full of things we don't use in places we don't live.

As I type this, I am sitting in a sea of cardboard boxes; the simple act of walking from the penthouse to the bedroom is an acrobatic exercise that often exacts collateral damage on the dog, who was always underfoot anyway and now has nowhere to escape. The past two days have been a whirlwind of eBay activity as we sell everything from sterling silver to bits of police motorcycle uniforms. There are more books than either of us remembered, between the keepsake and inscribed volumes, and the ones we thought we'd read "someday" in a few years, after we whittled down the stack we brought with us to while away the time (we've averaged only one a year since we left). Sadly, the books have no monetary value, and we are donating them to the library.

The bulkier items are on Craig's List, like the air compressor. I've got about five pounds of Freon R-12 refrigerant in a 30# cylinder that I'm trying to figure out how to legally sell, worth a couple hundred bucks. There are a daunting number of items still to list on the Internet, including motorcycle parts, collectible Matchbox cars, and various bits of memorabilia. We'd already exhausted the family and friends avenue before we hit the road: the heirlooms we've been storing were offered to family in the pre-departure purge, and our friends ended up with a lot of our furniture, tools, and kitchenware.

Louise is better at this than I. Other than a box of childhood toys that will need some kind of ceremonial send-off (they are too far gone even to be given away at this point), she has had no trouble glancing at items and plopping them into boxes or onto piles. I, on the other hand, have spent inordinate amounts of time thumbing through cherished volumes, fondling keepsakes, and ruminating about appropriate dispositions for gifts from now-deceased relatives. I am taking digital photos of the truly important items as a memento, but as they say at liquidations, "everything must go."

When we left here five and a half years ago, the bus was packed to the gills -- we crammed everything in that we possibly could. But over that time we've consumed the consumables, replaced the replacement parts, and simply got rid of lots of stuff that we realized we were carrying around for no reason. So today we have a little more room, and I expect we will once again leave here with none to spare. Some of the books will get crammed in the bookshelves, the motor uniform will get stuffed in the closet, and extra tools and parts will be squeezed into the bays.

Several boxes will likely fill the living room as we plan to cull through thousands of slides and photographic prints, both loose and in albums, and send the ones we'd like to keep off to be digitized. Some of the for-sale items will likely leave here with us as well, until their listings end or a buyer steps forward. And I am mentally preparing myself for the reality that, on our last day here about two weeks from now, there will be a huge pile of stuff that will have to go to Freecycle, Goodwill, or the dump. I hope I will be ready.

Familiar surroundings

We are back in the bay area, and parked on a quiet dead end near the Elks lodge in Sunnyvale (map). We lived together less than a mile from here for a time, and each of us lived separately just a few blocks from here, long before we met. The neighborhood does not feel like "home" to either of us, but is as familiar to us as anyplace we know.

The memorial celebration Sunday was filled with pleasant memories, some moving moments, and lots of catching up with close friends we seldom see. It was close to 5 by the time we rolled out of Milpitas, loaded down with leftovers from the overabundance of comfort food that was served. We headed straight here, just about a fifteen minute drive, and settled in to a familiar spot. We are accustomed to having this street to ourselves, but there is a class-C across the street on this visit.

While we've been known to spend an entire bay area visit on the street like this, moving every couple of days to comply with the 72-hour rule, we have too much to do on this visit that will involve loading and unloading bays, spreading things out, and spending lots of time away from the bus. So shortly we will move to the Elks lodge in San Jose, another familiar stop, where we can stay for two weeks at a stretch, we can do some outside projects, and, most importantly, we are only a few minutes from our rental unit downtown, which we will need to be visiting several times during our stay.

Yesterday, though, we stayed right here while we made phone calls and got ourselves organized. I was able to get the Camping World in San Martin, a dozen miles south of San Jose, to order our much needed swivel bearings for our Flexsteel chairs, and made plans with local friend, bus enthusiast, and venture capitalist Basil to get together when he returns from Las Vegas next week. We put two or three other appointments on the calendar, and then made plans for dinner last night in Redwood City with our friend Eric, who has been kind enough to lend us a car on our last few visits here.

He has lent us the car on this visit as well. Since this spot is a shorter train ride from Redwood City, and would be a shorter drive back, we decided to stay right here last night, and walked the three quarters of a mile to the CalTrain station. We had a nice dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant -- downtown Redwood City has become a really vibrant place, with a surfeit of restaurants of all descriptions. It was nearly 11 by the time we returned.

In a few minutes we will avail ourselves of the dump station at the Elks lodge across the street, since there is no such facility in San Jose. Then we will proceed to our new digs caravan-style.

Photo of Sunnyvale CalTrain station by Royston Rascals, used under a creative commons license.

Switching celebrations

We are at the now-familiar Elks lodge in Monterey, California (map). We were a little surprised to find only three other rigs here when we arrived mid-afternoon yesterday; this is a popular lodge and we expected RV parking to be nearly full on a pleasant weekend. We had our pick of spaces, which is good, because only three or four of the 12 here really fit us.

Louise's dad Jerry came by and we spent the afternoon chatting and catching up aboard Odyssey, a rare treat for us. His wife Kay is allergic to our pets, so we never spend any time on the bus when we get together, but Kay is away for the weekend at a wedding. It was Jerry's birthday Friday, so we got to take him out last night to celebrate, and wrapped up with a bit more chat at home before ending our brief visit.

We turned in early for an early start today, but our effort was somewhat foiled by a wedding or similar party going on here at the lodge. The lodge rents its hall out to a local event outfit with an office next door, and they were busy preparing when we arrived. The music went until well past midnight, and the myriad cars dribbled out one or two at a time over the course of a couple hours. One presumably inebriated party-goer insisted on honking his horn several times on the way out of the parking lot at one-something a.m., rather rude with four RVs and an apartment complex sharing the lot.

Today we go to a celebration of a different sort, the memorial for our friend Joe who passed away in December. We were sent the invitation as a courtesy; no one involved expected us to attend, knowing we had been in Florida just a couple months ago. But we were in Phoenix when the invitation arrived, and already en route here, so we only had to accelerate our plans by a week or two to arrive in time. We are glad to be able to attend, and also looking forward to seeing everyone.

We will drive directly to the memorial location, a community room at a mobile home park, just in time for the celebration. Whenever we are done there this afternoon, I expect to just head over to one of our stealth parking spots for a night or two. We have lots of projects specific to the bay area on our agenda, but I need some time first to catch up on a bunch of things that I planned for Phoenix, but put on hold to arrive here today.

Restless diesels

We are at the Valero truck stop, along US-101 just south of King City, California (map).

This stretch of 101 is very familiar to us, as it was one of our principal routes south from the bay area when we lived there; we've been through King City dozens of times. Yet, oddly, we had never really realized that there was really no RV parking anywhere near the highway. We'd mostly stayed in motels along the route, or tent camped in the hills along either side of the Salinas valley.

When we left Palmdale yesterday, we figured to be somewhere along 101 when we stopped for the night. We were already on 46 crossing over from the central valley as we combed through our many directories looking for a good stopping location. The nearest Wal-Mart is an hour north of here in Salinas, rest areas in California do not permit overnight stops, and the nearest public lands are dozens of miles from the highway. Even our truck stop directory listed only one between San Miguel and Salinas, and that's where we ended up.

Right next door to the Valero station, which includes a mini-mart, is a complex comprising a small motel, RV park (really), self-storage lot, restaurant, and yet another mini-mart/liquor store. The two mini-marts are barely 100 yards apart. We did eat in the family-style restaurant, the Wild Horse Cafe, squeaking through the door just ten minutes ahead of the 6:30 closing time. We had the place to ourselves; the food was decent, and they even had wine.

We figured to have a quiet night here, but diesels on either side of us idled all night long. This I can not understand, in this temperate weather. It was in the high 70s when we arrived around 4pm, and we were quite comfortable just by opening the windows and running the vent fans. Late in the evening, as the temperature dropped, we merely needed to close the windows and vents, and we were plenty warm all night. Surely conditions could not be much different in a modern sleeper cab. The sort of weather that mandates A/C or heater use all night might justify idling the truck (although, really, cabs routinely used for sleeping should be equipped with APUs), and such conditions might easily have driven us to the RV park next door as well. But, sheesh, 10 gallons of diesel to avoid adjusting the vents?

In a short while, we will continue north on 101 to Salinas, then dart west to Monterey, where we will stop for a quick visit with Louise's dad. I expect to be in Monterey tonight, either at the Elks lodge, or, if they are full up, Laguna Seca Raceway. Tomorrow we are due in Milpitas for a memorial celebration.

LA avoidance technique

We are at a Wal-Mart in Palmdale, California (map), the heart of the Antelope Valley.

When traveling west on I-10, if you ask the GPS to route you anywhere in northern California, it will take you right through Los Angeles. That's because the entire route will stay on the Interstate that way, and, to the GPS, the Interstate is always faster. The GPS has never had to drive in LA.

In practice, unless you are passing through at, say, 3am, the chances are very good that one or more of the Interstate routes through LA will be stopped dead, or at least at a slow crawl. It can take hours to go a couple dozen miles. Unless we have a reason to stop somewhere in the area (and we often do), we prefer to avoid it entirely.

The canonical way to do this from I-10 west to I-5 north is to take 210 around San Bernardino, briefly get on I-15 north to the Cajon Pass, then take California 138 west, which winds its way through the Antelope Valley and connects to I-5 just south of the infamous "Grapevine." It's only a few miles longer, is more scenic, and is almost always faster. There is an even more scenic and somewhat shorter bypass to the two straight (north then west) legs of 138, Elizabeth Lake Road, but it bypasses Palmdale and we needed a place to stop for the night.

The route is very familiar to us, having done it multiple times in the bus, as well as on our big touring motorcycles back when that was our main mode of travel. Nevertheless, it is a part of California that few ever see.

In a few minutes we will continue west on 138 to I-5 at Gorman.

Photo by hall.chris25, used under a creative commons license.

Desert stopover

We are on some BLM land across the freeway from Ford's Dry Lake (map). This was a natural stopping place after about a four hour drive from north Phoenix

We found the new location of the consignment shop with no trouble, and the Metropolitan was indeed still there and mostly intact. (Inexplicably, one of the rear view mirrors is missing; the shop owner could not explain it other than to speculate that someone helped themselves to it while it was on display in the parking lot.)

After chatting with the owner for a while, we made an effort to squeeze the Metro into the bay with the other two scooters, on the theory that we might have an easier time selling it in California. It would just fit, but with only millimeters to spare, we were certain there would be damage to one, two, or all three bikes by the time we got to the bay area. We decided to leave it with him, drop the price, and help market it ourselves (look for a separate post here soon). The good news is the new shop is right next door to the motorcycle training contractor, so there will be some exposure to new riders, for whom a 49cc Metro might be the perfect bike.

It was well past noon by the time we left the shop and headed out onto the road. With only three and a half days to get all the way to the bay area, we stayed on I-10 the whole way, stopping at the Flying-J on the west end of Phoenix to fill the tank first. Fuel in California is a good deal more expensive, and Flying-J had about the best price in town, at $2.689 with our RV discount. While we were there we also dumped the tanks, since dumps in the bay area are few; this location has two dumps which are still free, although we've heard Flying-J is starting to charge for dumping at many of its locations.

We wanted to be all the way out of Arizona before stopping for the night, which meant either a parking lot behind a restaurant in Blythe, or this desert boondocking. With the weather absolutely perfect yesterday evening, I wanted to relax outside and grill a steak, so we stocked up at the Albertson's in Blythe and came here. We only rolled far enough from the freeway to be legal and have a little separation from it. It was dark and quiet here last night, other than the freeway itself, and the lights of the nearby prison in the distance.

We'll get an early start today, as driving west too late in the afternoon is brutal. I'm not sure where we will end up tonight.

Our ever-changing travel plan

Yesterday morning found us at the Elks lodge in Chandler, Arizona (map). While only a short drive from the Lone Butte Casino, our friends and fellow DOVEs Beth Ann and Shashi were staying there, and we wanted to get in a quick visit before they had to leave town. I also have some outdoor projects to get done, and the weather is now pleasant enough to set up the chairs and relax outside, none of which we felt comfortable doing at the casino.

While we did get to sit outside, socializing with our friends as well as new acquaintances Duane and Toni, I never did get to the outdoor projects. The four of us had a nice dinner in historic downtown Chandler, just a few miles from the lodge, at Serrano's. Duane and Toni had to get back to their rig, which turns out to be parked at Wild Horse Pass -- small world.

We also got some news on Monday that has radically changed our plans. You may remember that Louise had been invited to a meeting which had tentatively been scheduled for Albuquerque, then changed to Milwaukee. As I have written here many times, we never count on any travel plans from the Red Cross until we get actual travel orders. As it turns out, the meeting will be in Milwaukee, but travel budget constraints mean that Louise will not attend.

While we have plenty of things we can do here in the Phoenix area, and the weather has been pleasant, the principle reason we've been dallying here has been the potential of either driving to Albuquerque, or Louise flying to Wisconsin, which would best be done from Sky Harbor here. Thus released from either possibility, we are now free to continue west to our next obligation, in the SF bay area. We'd previously committed to attend a recital there for our friend the composer on April 10, and we've also planned to spend a couple of weeks "cleaning house" -- we have a small closet where we've been storing business records and some other sundry items, with which we can not part.

In the meantime, we received notice of a memorial celebration that will be held this weekend for our friend Joe who passed away in December. When we first got the notice, of course, we'd figured to still be here in Phoenix until after the weekend, for Louise to attend her meeting. The sudden and unexpected cancellation of her participation, though, opened up the possibility that we could make it to the memorial after all. That is what occupied our thoughts and discussion after we parted company with our friends Monday evening.

By yesterday morning we had decided we'd make an early appearance in the bay area. That meant, for one thing, that we will basically have to drive straight there, mostly on the freeway, rather than taking our customary leisurely route, through the desert and up the coast. The other consequence, though, is that we'd have to accelerate the rest of our plans here in Phoenix to get on the road -- it's 15 hours of driving, and we'd rather do that in three days than two.

After some morning chit-chat with Beth Ann and Shashi, we loaded up, made a donation, and rolled north to where we sit today, the Phoenix Elks lodge at the north end of town (map). We chose this spot because it is less than a mile from where we left Louise's Honda Metropolitan scooter on consignment last year. So far, the scooter has not sold, and we wanted to check on it, and determine whether or not it should even stay at this shop.

Unfortunately, when we rolled over there on the scooters yesterday afternoon, we found the shop had moved, about eight miles west. We did not have time to head over there before our next obligation, which was to check on our restaurant investment downtown. So we suspended, for the time being, the great scooter investigation, and rode the 16 miles into town. Our restaurant there has entered into a cooperative arrangement with the historic Hotel San Carlos next door, wherein we are providing the food and beverage for room service and a small dining room near the lobby. Hotel guests are also given vouchers for breakfast at our place. We hope the additional business will finally move the restaurant into the black.

We had dinner and a glass of wine at the hotel, which has a nice patio area on the sidewalk. It was absolutely perfect weather for dining al fresco. Afterwards we took a little tour of the historic hotel, checking out the Marilyn Monroe suite and the lovely pool area on the second floor. We arrived back here mid-evening.

Since the new location of the bike consignment shop is actually more or less on our route out of town, we will load up in just a few moments and roll over there in the bus. We should be well inside California this evening.

Photo by TheAmigo, used under a creative commons license.

Casino hopping

We are at the Lone Butte Casino (map), just a few miles from Wild Horse Pass and operated by the same tribe.

The truck and RV spaces here are much larger, with room for slides and a toad, although we have neither. There are only a handful of spaces, but overflow into the adjoining area of the regular lot seems to be tolerated -- several rigs have been there for at least a couple of days. The casino has three bars, two full service restaurants, and a food court with several options. We had a nice dinner at the Verona Chophouse, a sort of Italian-American affair with very good food and an extensive wine list.

On our way here, we stopped at the Love's adjacent to the Interstate and put 100 gallons in at $2.699, about the cheapest we've seen in a while. Being right across the freeway from Firebird Speedway, this station also carries race fuel. We put some water in as well, at what remains of their former dump station, now filled in with decorative rocks.

In a few minutes we will roll east to the Chandler Elks Lodge, where we will settle in until we get word on what is happening with Louise's potential meeting in Wisconsin, or wherever it may happen.

Changing times

We are at the Wild Horse Pass Hotel Casino, off I-10 south of Chandler, Arizona (map). Long-time readers may remember that we've been "here" before, but really, we haven't. I say that because the entire casino has moved, just a little over a mile from its former location. With the move came some significant changes.

Some of our more die-hard readers might have read through my rant when we stayed at Wild Horse Pass two years ago. We observed the same behavior on our last visit, a year ago, and chose to stay in the truck parking rather than the "RV ghetto" as a result. For the newcomers who don't care to follow the links, suffice it to say the northeast parking lot of the casino had become a de-facto campground, where some people had, apparently, "moved in" for the season, staying months at a time, and setting out all manner of furniture, mats, BBQs, chimineas, generators, bicycles -- you name it. Some rigs had boxes and other items stored underneath. Either the casino and tribe permitted it, or perhaps just tolerated it.

As they say, you reap what you sow, and in this new location, things are different. As at the last location, there is a specific section of the parking lot angle-striped for RVs. On the way into this lot now is a sign outlining the rules.



For one thing, RVs are now limited to a stay of 48 hours. The sign clearly states "no camping." For another, they want all the RVs in this one area. While we've been here, several rigs have tried to park in a gravel lot just a couple dozen feet away, and security has been chasing them out. Friday night they came through and booted everyone out at 10pm. Last night, a few rigs managed to squeak in after the last patrol; I am guessing security has better things to do on the busy Saturday night.



The reason those rigs went to the gravel lot is simple: they wanted to extend their slides, and/or not have to unhook their toads. Neither is possible here in the RV lot, unless you snag one of the four (out of 32) spaces that has a little buffer zone next to it. That did not stop at least three rigs from just taking up two spaces each.



Mats, furniture, grills, etc. are also now banned. Again it did not stop a few souls; patrols are few and far between. But judging from comments to my report over on the Casino Camper group, the sign is brand new (the casino has only been open here for four months), and from the little I overheard of security chatting with each other, they are just now starting enforcement.

I can't say that I blame them, or even that I am unhappy with the result. While we've been known to spend more than just a couple of nights at a casino, where permitted, the conditions that had developed at the old Wild Horse Pass were really beyond the pale.

The new facility has a ten-story hotel tower and several food venues. Friday night we ate at the upscale Shula's steakhouse, which normally is out-of-sight expensive, but we knew there was a prix-fixe promotion on dinner for two through the end of the month. The last time we ate at a Shula's was Christmas, 2008, at Disney World. Even the promo was pricey, but worth every penny. I have a special fondness for classic America steak houses; I grew up in the meat industry in New York, and I remember dining many times in my formative years at Sparks, one of our customers. Yes, this is the same place in front of which Gambino family capo Paul Castellano was gunned down, and no, I am not a made man; in spite of the enormous New Jersey nose and being half Italian, it is on my mother's side.

Last night we had a nice casual dinner at the Asian-themed sit-down restaurant. The casino also has a food court with four fast-food options, including Italian, Mexican, a Boar's Head deli, and a Fatburger. A hip bar across from the second-floor Shula's serves Shula's appetizer menu as yet another dining option. Interestingly, there is no buffet, as there had been in the older casino.



My curiosity got the better of me yesterday, and I pulled a scooter out to ride over to the old casino, and also the nearby Sheraton resort, also owned by the tribe. The casino is vacant, and I understand the tribe is trying to decide what to do with it. They have posted no parking signs throughout the lot, and I would guess security patrols there often enough to keep anyone from squatting. Interestingly, the Google satellite imagery (at this writing) was taken the very month the casino moved, and you can still see a handful of rigs in the old parking lot then. The resort, on the other hand, was quite busy. I wonder what, if anything, will become of the little artificial river that had been built to carry resort guests to and from the casino on little boats, a la Disney or the Hilton Waikoloa. It has never operated in the time we've been visiting here.

In a couple hours we will be up against our 48-hour limit, and we will move along. Tomorrow we plan to be at the Elks lodge in Chandler; tonight we will stay at the Lone Butte Casino about half way there, also operated by the Gila River Indian Community.

Courting the muse

We are at Harrah's Ak-Chin Casino (map), just south of Maricopa, Arizona. This is a familiar stop for us.

We left the SKP co-op shortly after the noon checkout time yesterday. First we filled our LPG cylinders -- the co-op has its own filling station and a great price on LP. We had to drag ourselves away from our friends -- we were still chatting away as checkout time rolled around. But two nights there was plenty for us, and I had some work to get done.

More specifically, I had an article to write for Bus Conversions Magazine. Wednesday was actually the deadline for the April issue, and I knew the magazine was short content for the month. They needed the help, so they gave me a couple days grace on the deadline to get something in. This is in addition to the regular monthly column I am now writing on electrical topics.

I did a full-length piece on choosing between 12 and 24 volt house battery systems, slanted mostly to owners of 24 volt coaches (most large tour coaches have 24 volt chassis systems). I formulated the idea in the morning, based on a review of some of the questions I've answered over the years on the bulletin board. But I knew I needed a good chunk of down time -- several hours -- to just sit and bang the piece out from scratch. This casino was just a half hour up the road from where we were, giving me the whole afternoon and evening to write quietly.

I did not finish until late in the evening, after a nice dinner in the buffet. Louise, who normally edits my work, was already in bed, and I took all the photos for the article after dark. It was no surprise, then, that I had a bunch more work to do this morning, after she red-lined the piece from top to bottom, and also suggested that several of the photos needed to be re-done. I'm finally finished, and it's all been sent to the magazine. Two more like this and I'll be eligible for a set of steak knives free jacket.

This is now the fourth full-length feature article I've submitted to the magazine over the years. At some point, I'd like to post them somewhere on our web site, after the magazine's exclusive expires. Stay tuned.

Tomorrow morning I have to teach the Disaster Services Technology - Communications curriculum by web conference to a group of students in Spokane, Washington. We're ruminating now about staying here another night, or moving another half hour north to Wild Horse Pass, just south of the Phoenix metroplex. At this point, we're looking at hanging around the area until Louise's potential Red Cross meeting in Milwaukee, as Phoenix Sky Harbor is actually an ideal place from which to fly.

Our two days at the RV park allowed us to put a good soak on the batteries for the first time since my terminal repair. I'm not getting my hopes up, but we are monitoring them now for a few days to see if we really need to drop three grand on a new set right now. If we do, Phoenix will be the place to do it, as the East Penn distribution center for the southwest is here. Otherwise, I don't know when we will get to pass another one.

Image uploaded by Lynn (Gracie's mom) - I'm here & there and used under a Creative Commons license.

Our first SKP park

We are at the RoVers' Roost SKP co-op, several miles west of Casa Grande, Arizona (map). Uncharacteristically, we are in a full hookup site ($15) rather than the boondock area ($5, with the first night free).

We are here visiting our friends Tom and Kathleen. We did just see them less than two weeks ago, at our Red Cross meeting in Tucson, but we did not really get a chance to spend time and catch up. Kathleen is in a leg cast, limiting their mobility, and we took the hookup site to be basically right next door to them, since we were providing dinner one night. With night time temperatures in the low 40s, though, it was nice to have the power for the heaters, and our poor tired batteries needed the rest and full recharge.

Speaking of the batteries, my fix to the terminal posts resulted in only a minor improvement; it looks like we will need a new set of batteries. A friend of ours who carries Deka batteries can get us a set for 10% over his cost, which we can pick up at any East Penn distribution center. That will bring the cost of a new set down to under $3K, after cores and tax. There is a distributor in Phoenix, and if I can find some help there to get the batteries in and out, that's probably where we will get them. I'm also going to need eight sets of post adaptors, as the Dekas have only automotive terminals, while the Trojans they will replace also had threaded post terminals. I have to say I am very disappointed in the Trojans. One upside to the Dekas is that they are higher capacity, bringing the bank up to 980 amp-hours, from 920.

We've had a nice visit. We made dinner on Tuesday night, and Tom cooked for us last night. In addition to sitting around chatting, I managed to get Louise's scooter repaired yesterday during the nicer part of the afternoon. I used my Dremel to clean up the burrs and rough edges on the existing half-pulley fins; it did not look badly enough damaged not to re-use. We had three sets of eyeballs on it before coming to that conclusion. After torquing the pulley nut as far as my impact driver would go, I made a pair of punch marks on the nut and spindle, and we'll open the case back up in another few hundred miles to see if there has been any relative movement, in order to avoid a repeat. While I was under there, I also blinged out her scoot with a set of ultra-bright blue LED strips facing the ground, replacing the wimpy ones we put in months ago that you couldn't even see.

In a short while we will head out for the Phoenix area, likely to stay at one of the casinos. While we enjoy the company of our friends, we are a bit out of place here, as it is really a senior park (they assured us that they were permitted a certain percentage of non-senior overnighters). It is also the sort of campground that is the antithesis of what we normally seek, with spaces right next to each other and arranged in neat rows. It is also in the middle of nowhere, which is great for a more rustic setting, but not so good for what amounts to a trailer park. In over five years of being Escapees, this is our first stay in one of their cooperative parks.

Neoplan meet-up

We are at the Casino Del Sol on the western edge of Tucson (map). We knew they were RV-friendly, as we've stayed here before, and we'd already worn out our welcome at the closer and nicer Desert Diamond, which has a seven-night limit.

We ended up staying at The Shelter until past 5:00 on Sunday. When we first wandered in, there were only four folks from the scooter contingent in the bar, notwithstanding the fact that the closing party supposedly started half an hour earlier, and no scoots were in the lot. That's because the weather had turned nasty, and many folks ditched the afternoon ride altogether, while those who did it were hunkered down someplace on the route, waiting for clearer skies.

Nevertheless, we ordered a couple of happy-hour pints and settled in to see if anyone else would show up. As luck would have it, just as we were about to give up, people started wandering in past 3, and a couple we had befriended on Saturday, Pami and Guy, sat with us. We ended up shooting the breeze for nearly two hours before deciding we had better get rolling if we wanted to park someplace in the daylight. We took our leave of the half-dozen or so scooterists still in the joint, and ran out to the bus in the pouring rain.

Other than the slightly closer Elks lodge, which was a big unknown owing to its description in the guide as a small dirt lot (we did not want to be parking in the mud, given the torrential downpour), and the aforementioned Desert Diamond, this was the closest guaranteed free parking. We headed straight here, not wanting to deal with finding anything else. We had a nice dinner at their Mexican-themed venue, having already tried the high-end Italian place on our last visit. No free slot play or $211 jackpot on this visit, though.

Late that evening I received a message from fellow Neoplan owners Peter and Gabi, whom we know from the Bus Conversions bulletin board. They were in Yuma and heading home to Alamagordo, and inquired if we might be available for a quick visit, as Tucson is right on the way. We're always happy to meet other Neoplan owners, and we'd already conversed some on the board, so we suggested they come by sometime after we'd had enough coffee to be human.

And so it was that late yesterday morning they came rolling up in their converted Neoplan AN400 transit bus, toting a flatbed trailer with an old Mercedes on it. We later learned the Mercedes was the reason for the Yuma trip; they were retrieving it for a friend who had purchased it, sight-unseen I assume. Gabi and Peter are German, and so Neoplan was a familiar name to them. Little did they know when they purchased this coach that the AN440 was a strictly American model, built here in the US with almost exclusively domestic parts.

They have done a great job of converting it into a usable motor home on a limited budget. As foreign nationals here on limited visas, they are trying to limit their unrecoverable investments in material goods in the US, at least unless and until they can obtain more permanent status in this country. A wise move, we think. Peter has converted the rig to run on waste vegetable oil (WVO), which he purifies himself after collecting it from a variety of establishments with which he has agreements. We envy their ability to travel extensively at a much, much lower per-mile cost than us.

We really hit it off, being mostly of the same uber-geek mold with the same weird penchant for travel and non-traditional lifestyle. We ended up talking through lunch, our standard fare served in the penthouse, and well into late afternoon. Being due back in Alamagordo tonight, however, they decided they needed to get rolling and put some more miles under their wheels. We were sorry they could not stay for dinner. Before they left, though, Peter, who is an expert on diesels and a fuel injection specialist by trade, listened to our Detroit start up cold and watched the puff of white smoke that has been worrying me. I was relieved when he announced that this amount was completely normal. We agreed that we would try to reconnect somewhere in New Mexico if we ended up going to Albuquerque later this month.

Unfortunately, we learned this morning that Louise's Red Cross meeting may, instead, be held in Milwaukee. We knew that Albuquerque was only a guess, just as Orlando had been for the meeting we just finished two weeks ago here in Tucson, and so we did not actually make any definitive plans for it. I am a little disappointed, but it does not really make sense for us to roll some 650 miles, round trip, "out of our way" to Albuquerque just to attend the FMCA rally, when we need to be in California in another month. (If the Red Cross meeting had actually materialized there, our expense would have been offset somewhat by mileage reimbursement in lieu of airfare.)

We'll miss seeing our friends Jim and Pat, and probably some others, as well as the chance to reconnect with Gabi and Peter. But, as always, we know there will be other opportunities further down the road. The couple of things I had hoped to procure at the rally, including replacement chair swivels and maybe some LED replacement bulbs, will also have to wait.

Today's project, postponed from yesterday on account of bad weather, was to have been repairing the variator on Louise's scooter. After much discussion, we had decided to tackle this ourselves first, and fall back on the services of a shop only if necessary. However, the weather is still pretty chilly today, with a 30% chance of rain, and so we have decided instead to move along. Our friends Tom and Kathleen are still in Casa Grande, at the SKP co-op there, and we'd like to visit a bit on our way to Phoenix, so we'll be heading that way this afternoon. Some of the other thing's I'd like to do in Tucson, such as the Titan Missile Museum and BioSphere-2, will have to wait for another visit.

Friki Tiki

We are parked for the afternoon at The Shelter bar in Tucson (map). In another forty minutes or so, the closing party for the Friki Tiki scooter rally will be held here; how we came to be here in the bus instead of on our scooters is something of a story in itself.

Friday evening we rode downtown to the rally registration, set up at the historic Hotel Congress. In addition to some notoriety as having housed the Dillinger Gang, who were forced from the hotel by a fire, the hotel famously contains four bars and a popular music venue, Club Congress. Since the Friki Tiki festival is not only a scooter rally but also a garage music event, all the venues have been musically inclined.

After registering and meeting several members of the sponsoring Mary Janes Scooter Club at the patio party, we walked in to the restaurant for dinner. There was an hour wait -- downtown Tucson is a hopping place on the weekends. We wandered instead across the street to Maynards, housed in the nicely restored SP depot that also serves as the Amtrak station. They were able to seat us on the patio within a few minutes, and we had a nice meal. We opted to skip the music as well as the party at the Go Gorilla Garage in favor of getting enough sleep to be perky for the morning ride.

Yesterday was the big ride day. We opted for the slower ride to San Xavier Mission in the morning, where we enjoyed some home made fry bread. The mission itself has been carefully restored, and still serves as a Catholic church. The mission is actually only a few miles west of where we were parked at the casino, and on the same Tohono O'Odham reservation. I opted to zip home quickly to walk Opal while the group took the scenic ride back, and I met up with everyone at the lunch stop at Sir Vezas cantina. After lunch, Louise and I and some new friends rode over to the local sooter store, Scoot Over, and then hit several stores on the "Passport Tour" where each store stamped our card for raffle entries later.

The afternoon ride was a "sunset" ride up to Tucson Mountain. This is a lovely, curvy ride through a veritable forest of saguaros and up to a scenic view at the top of the mountain. We also did a loop on the west side, touring past the campground at Tucson Mountain Park and just touching Saguaro National Monument. We had to leave before sunset, but it looked to be a great spot for one. One of our contingent suffered a flat on the way up, and I was able to lend him my CO² inflator to plump up his spare.

Unfortunately, on the way down the mountain and heading for the big luau dinner event, Louise's scooter suffered a ride-ending failure. The nut that holds the variator pulley onto the engine output shaft came loose, causing the outer half of the pulley to start scraping against the case, with a horrible screeching sound. By shutting the engine down, stopping to disengage the centrifugal clutch, and then coasting down the very steep road, we were able to get to a safe place to disassemble the transmission to investigate, with a determination that nothing could be done on the road side to get the scoot going again.

We were able to coast yet further downhill to the site of an abandoned restaurant, slated to become condos. The parking lot was open, and had plenty of room to get Odyssey in and out, plus a metal pole to which we could lock the scooter. So we pushed it into the lot, took all the valuable items out of it, locked it up, and continued to dinner two-up on my scooter. We were about an hour late, and some of our new-found friends had actually been calling us on my cell phone to make sure we were OK. Of course, we could not answer while we were riding.


All's well that ends well; we were still in plenty of time to get our included dinner, which was delicious. We were also in time to exchange our "passports" for raffle tickets, though we did not stay late enough to find out if we won anything. We also had some great conversation with folks, and, of course, we now have a story to tell.

One scooter being down aced us out of breakfast as well as today's "landmark" ride, but it's been raining on and off anyway. After getting the bus packed up and squared away this morning, we drove the dozen miles or so to where we left Allegro, which was clearly untouched over night. Fortunately, the location was a couple miles shy of the 12,000-pound weight restriction that starts further up the mountain. We loaded the scooter up and headed back down the hill.

Even if we could not participate in the morning's events, we figured we could still make the closing party, as The Shelter has a huge parking lot. We wanted to get here well before scooters start arriving, so we would not have to do the scooter slalom with the bus. We did stop on the way at a Circle-K station that had $2.749 diesel, about the cheapest we've seen for a while, and put in a quarter tank.

The scooter failure has thrown a wrench into our planning, if you will excuse the pun. I was certain that from here we would be heading to Casa Grande today, but now we might stick around until Tuesday to see about fixing the variator. At least we now know a great scooter shop in town, although, as is common, they are closed Sunday and Monday.

"Relaxing" in Tucson

We are back at the Desert Diamond Casino in Tucson (map), across the train tracks and Nogales Highway from Tucson International Airport.

We rolled right back down here after our Leadership Summit up in the Catalina Hills, since we really did not have any kind of plan about where to head next, and this was the nearest free parking. We thought we'd spend a few days, collect our thoughts, catch up on some much needed rest, and figure out where to go from here. Also, there is the ever-present project list, and I thought maybe we'd tackle a couple in the nice weather.

In the back of my mind I had thought perhaps we'd roll down to Sierra Vista and visit friends there, but, as it turns out, they are overseas. We learned this at dinner with our friend Mark on Sunday night; he actually had the keys to their place, and is staying there for a few days of R&R with his wife. Small world. He drove over here from his Sunday-night digs at an airport hotel, and we had a nice dinner at the steak house in the casino.

Monday we pretty much crashed. We've been busy every day since we left Florida, and the three-day meeting was fairly intense, with barely enough down-time to catch dinner and some conversation each night. In addition to sleeping in, we mostly sat around the house and caught up on email and various web sites we try to keep up with, but couldn't for the last several days. Neither one of us felt like the $17 seafood extravaganza at the buffet, after a weekend of three full meals a day (we usually have a very light breakfast and lunch, but the Red Cross has a way of beating that out of you). Neither did we want to return to the steak house, for the same reason, so we just had a light dinner at the casino's fast-food venue; I had steam-table Chinese, and Louise had a burger from the grill.

Tuesday ended up being one of those project days from hell. Lately, the battery voltage has been dropping to generator auto-start levels after barely 200 amp-hours of use, which is just over a day for us. The bank is nominally 920 amp-hours of capacity, and we used to get 600-700 amp-hours from them before the voltage dropped that far. They are less than three years old, and don't have all that many cycles on them, so this is very troubling, and I've been worried for the last several days that they are finally at end-of-life and will need to be replaced, to the tune of nearly four grand. First, though, I'd have to at least look at them, and perhaps test each one individually.

This is a major job, involving emptying the "tunnel" of all the stuff we normally store there, then removing some dress panels, and finally squeezing my hands and tools into a cramped compartment full of enough juice to kill me, or at least weld a wrench to the frame before burning the bus to the ground. Taking batteries out from their perch over the front wheel wells solo is out of the question, as they weigh 167 pounds each. All of this must be done while huddled in the tunnel over the steering box, between the wheel wells.

The project took the entire day, and, disappointingly, I did not find one rogue battery with a warped case doing dastardly things to the entire bank. In fact, everything looked pretty normal, with the notable exception of a great deal of fuzzy greenish-white corrosion on a single battery terminal and its associated wiring. This happens to be the "mid-point" of the battery bank, where one 12-volt bank of four batteries joins to the other 12-volt bank of four batteries to make 24 volts. Thus is is also where the 12-volt loads connect, as well as the 12-volt output of the Vanner battery equalizer that endeavors to keep both halves of the battery system in balance.

I racked my brains trying to figure out exactly what kinds of problems with this setup would cause this symptom just on this terminal, but I did not come up with a reasonable explanation. I did meter out the Vanner and confirmed that it was, indeed, performing its function of equalizing the batteries. (We lost one of the starting batteries once when, unknown to us, one of the fuses on the separate Vanner for the start bank had blown, causing the lower side of the bank to be overcycled.)

Once I had the whole bank isolated from the loads, charge sources, and equalizer, I also metered the upper and lower halves separately, and determined they were in perfect balance. That would rule out a lone rogue battery that had gone bad -- whichever half of the bank had a bad battery would read low. So all I could do was cross my fingers that the corrosion alone would account for the low voltage condition under load, and address just that problem.

It was tough going in the cramped quarters, but with application of enough 200-grit sandpaper and weak base solution made from baking soda and water, I was able to clean up all the crimp terminals as well as the battery post. I liberally applied silicone dielectric grease to each connector, reassembled, and torqued the post nut as far as I dared, which was a good bit tighter than I found it. I also tightened up all the other battery posts that I could reach without shorting anything. After reconnecting the equalizer, main ground, and solar charge controller, I buttoned the battery compartments back up.

The Link-10 battery monitor immediately showed 8 amps going into the batteries from solar alone. We seldom see this number, because we normally do not have all the loads shut down. It was good to confirm that the batteries were fully on line and the solar was operational with good output (I had cleaned off the panels on Monday, since we were having so much trouble). Unfortunately, one result of having disconnected everything was that the Link-10 lost track of the state-of-charge, so we elected to run a full charge cycle on the generator, even though it was not really needed, Tuesday night.

So far, things seem to have improved somewhat. I won't really know if this had much of an effect until we've had another full charge/discharge cycle, but I remain somewhat optimistic. Even if we just get another six months out of these batteries, that will be a big help. Among other things, it will let me shop more selectively for replacements; when I saw they were running around $450 apiece nationwide, I blanched. We rewarded ourselves with the $10 before-6pm prime rib special in the steak house for dinner.

Yesterday was to have been another day of relaxation, after a morning visit with local blog reader Jim. Our afternoon plan was a nice scooter ride over to Camping World at Beaudry RV just a few miles away to check on replacement chair swivels and some other things. Just before we were to leave, I decided to synchronize my Blackberry with my PC, the first chance I've had since we changed time zones into Mountain Time (more on that in a moment).

Big mistake; since the last time I sync'ed mid-February, RIM released version 4.5 of the Blackberry OS, and my sync application wanted me to upgrade. Knowing most of my data was backed up, and that the upgrade would back it up again, I clicked OK. Somewhere in the last 5% of the upgrade process, however, I got a fatal error, and I've been in Blackberry Hell ever since. That would include three separate calls to Sprint's Blackberry Support, and hours upon hours on the 'net looking up fixes.

Fortunately, the phone did not turn into a brick. It merely reverted to a blank, empty, factory-default configuration. I was able to restore most of my data from the backup, and after calling Sprint the third time I was able to get the phone talking to the internet again. Unfortunately, every third-party application I ever installed on the phone, perhaps two dozen or so, along with its data and settings, was gone.

This was my own fault. I knew it once upon a time, but somewhere along the line I had forgotten that the routine "backups" I'd been doing on the phone saved internal databases as well as the content of my memory card, but not third-party applications. To back those up, one must follow an arcane and unsupported procedure that involves using the "device switch" tool in ways that were never intended.

So I have spent the better part of the last 29 hours or so trying to restore my Blackberry to its pre-"upgrade" state. Although we did take time out for that trip to Camping World this afternoon. Misery loves company, and I had some today; Louise came back from the laundromat ready to throw her cell phone in the trash, or maybe someplace worse. The battery is so done now that she gets maybe a few hours of standby time and a few minutes of talk before its dead, and even plugging it into the charger it sometimes dies in the middle of a call. We'd decided some time ago that there was no point in spending even $15 on a new battery, when her phone is ancient to begin with, and she qualified for a "free" new one long ago.

There was a Verizon dealer on the way to Camping World, and she now has a sleek new Samsung Intensity. This has a full QWERTY keyboard since we now receive the occasional paroxysm of text messages from our pre-teen and teenage nieces, and she's been coveting that aspect of my Blackberry -- texting from a 12-key phone dial is not for the likes of us (read: old).

So here we sit, the two of us intently programming cell phones. I admit to a bit of envy, as her keyboard is much nicer than mine. Also, I'm hard on phones, and, after nearly two years, mine looks like it's been through the wars. However, mine remains the lone data-enabled phone in the household. Louise had to give up her venerable and long-discontinued National Single-Rate plan (the one with analog roaming) in favor of one of the new all-digital plans, to which she added the smallest text bundle.

I still have quite a bit of work ahead of me. The phone crash provided a good opportunity to upgrade a lot of my apps, something I've been meaning to do but putting off. And then there is the matter of the time zones; after getting everything more or less working, I could not synchronize because #@!~ Microsoft Outlook, the only calendar app that the Blackberry syncs with, does weird stupid things to all-day appointments when you change time zones. Argh.

We also now have the makings of a plan. While we've been here, yet another part of the Red Cross has been in touch with Louise to follow up on a survey she took after one of our deployments in 2008. They actually now want her to attend a one-day meeting later this month to discuss improvements, and I'm not invited. The good news is that the front-runner for location for the meeting is Albuquerque, which means we could drive there quite easily. As I've written here in the past, though, we never count on these things until travel orders are issued.

The meeting happens to coincide with the FMCA convention, also in Albuquerque, and so, if that's where we end up going, I will register for the rally. Not only will that give me something to do during her meeting, but it will be a guaranteed parking spot, and there are some vendors I want to check out anyway. Between now and then, we will swing by Phoenix and check up on our restaurant investment there, as well as the forlorn Honda Metropolitan scooter we left there on consignment a year ago.

Since we have nearly three weeks before Louise's meeting, there is no particular rush to leave Tucson. There happens to be a scooter rally here this weekend, and, since it is within our seven day parking pass here at the casino, we've registered for it. So starting tomorrow evening and through the weekend we will be fraternizing with the Vespa set; I'm sure we'll be the oldest folks there. Now if you'll excuse me, we are about to head in to the $8.85 buffet for the second night in a row.

For Elks only

Edited: Bob of Infinity Coach, can you please contact us via email? Trying to figure out how to send your Elks guides...

We just received the latest versions of the "Elk RV Travel Guides," and would like to give away our gently used older copies. The previous editions cover 49 states in four booklets, and were published between October 2006 and April 2007. The guides show which Elks lodges allow RV parking and/or camping for members.

The information in the guides is a little out of date now, but in our experience, lodge locations and camping prices do not change very often. The original retail price of the four guides as a set was $45, and we will give them to you for free. Even the shipping is free!

Since only Elk members in good standing can park their RVs at participating lodges, we will give these older guides to the first Elk who comments on this post. You do not need to leave your lodge number or email address at this time, to minimize your chances of receiving spam. Just give us your name and that you are interested in the guides.