The Adventures of Me & My Shadow #38 in NE,SD,IA,KS,OK,TX,NM,AR,TN,WV,VA
10/14/99
3,347 miles this trip, odometer now 50,482. Total miles this year
18,447.
From VA Beach, VA, Hi Everyone!
The trip to Sioux Falls, SD went well and the report from the
Doctor was very good, my heart performance is improving due to
the new drug he put me on the last time I saw him. I complained
about the high cost and he told me there is another drug just
out that is cheaper and we might try it later. I spent an extra
day at the hospital as I was ahead of schedule for the GMC convention
in Forest City, IA I was plugged into one of six free RV parking
sites with 30 amp power in the hospital parking lot and the food
in the hospital cafeteria is outstanding, at a fraction of the
cost on the outside.
The trip to Forest City, IA went well, I guess I owe an apology
to Keith, my navigator, for accusing him of being drunk on the
trip west. He has been fine since I reinstalled the programs.
Perhaps I should blame Bill Gates at Microsoft for losing some
of his cards when I defragged the hard drive and he was no longer
playing with a full deck. The convention was outstanding, with
interesting seminars, the food was great, the weather was a little
on the windy side and the temp. was way below my comfort zone
of
80 degrees F. It rained on the last day and the ground was white
with snow the morning I left, so I was glad to be headed south.
The trip to Albuquerque, NM went well with a tail wind part of
the way. I didn't want to get there too soon so when Tom &
Udene Gaines went by in their GMC just as I had finished my Subway
sandwich I soon caught up with them. When they stopped for lunch
I went in and had a cup of coffee and visited with them. They
were going to stop by their summer home in Beaver Crossing, NE
and invited me to spend the night there. This home is different
than any other home I have ever been in. It was at one time an
old church (1909) that was to be torn down. Tom ask them if they
would sell it and he bought it for one dollar. After ten years
of hard work it is now a beautiful home, he is not done with it
yet, in the winter they live in CA so he don't work on it full
time. Tom is into antiques and the church is full of antiques,
some of them took me back to some adventures I had back in the
1930s. One was the wood burning kitchen range, in Nebraska we
burned corn cobs in it and it was my job to fill the cob box up
every afternoon when I came home from school. On Saturday afternoon
it was my job to carry water to be heated and used in the bath
tub to wash 6 kids and as I was always the dirtiest kid I was
always last to get a bath in the same water as the others, some
times some hot water would be added if it got too cold. On Monday
morning we had to fill a copper wash boiler on the stove so water
could be heated for the washing machine. The house had rain gutters
and down spouts that put all the rain water into an underground
cistern and there was a pitcher pump at the kitchen sink to pump
the rain water out of the cistern. We used the good soft rain
water for every thing but drinking, we had a pail of well water
for drinking and everybody used the same dipper to drink out of.
Mom always kept a container of sour skimmed milk on the back of
the stove for sour milk pancakes every morning for breakfast.
Those were the good old days. After the night at Beaver Crossing
I followed Tom to a state park in KS at Meade Lake, a nice place
to spend a night. The next morning I had to have fuel so I took
the lead & told Tom to go to the next station after I stopped
for fuel and he would find a lower price, he did & he did
find the lower price. Tom & Udene were going to spend another
night on the road and I wanted to run on in to Albuquerque so
I kicked my speed up and lost the good fuel consumption I was
getting by following Tom. Me & My Shadow just love to run
fast but it does cost more money. I did pass two more GMCs twice
before getting into town, I passed them twice because my GPS program
stopped responding and I had to pull off to turn it off and back
on so Keith would talk to me again. That is the first time this
has happened. I can tell Keith to go to sleep if I get tired of
hearing him but I didn't tell him to go to sleep and I couldn't
wake him up till I turned the program off and back on. I hope
he doesn't do it again.
The rally was great, again I learned some new things to do with
my GMC, The food was good, as was the weather, except for too
much wind that messed up some of the events at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.
If you have never been to this event you should try to make it
some time.
It is unbelievable even when you see it with your own eyes.
850 balloons from all around the globe and enough people to fill
several sports stadiums all on the field. I heard on TV that in
future Fiestas they expect the number of balloons to reach 1,000.
I also heard that this Fiesta is the only one that allows people
to be on the field with the balloons. The balloon pilots may be
content with a leisurely pace when they are flying the balloons
but when they are on the way to a new location they sure do get
in a hurry. About two dozen of them passed me Sunday headed east
on I40, I was doing the speed limit and they were just a streak
when they went by.
The trip east was one of the most enjoyable ones I have made in
the GMC, the weather was perfect, the roads were good and it was
mostly down hill all the way to the Mississippi river. This allowed
me to run fast with a light foot and get good economy. Every time
I stopped for fuel the price was lower than all the other stations
before or after, it was a first for that. I waited till the sun
was high enough so it wouldn't be blinding me when I headed east,
I hadn't gone too far when my old GMC informed me that I had a
problem. The propane refrigerator was not working, as I don't
have a co-pilot to check on it I have installed a red light that
I can see in the rear view mirror every time the refrigerator
comes on. If I don's see a red light for some time I know it is
not working. I pulled into a rest area to check it out, the burner
would come on for a short time and then go off. This told me that
the flame rod that senses when the fire is on needed to be cleaned.
I did this and it solved the problem. A new problem showed up
after I crossed the river and started to climb. She didn't want
to run fast & pull hard, she coughed a couple times and this
told me that she wasn't getting enough fuel. I switched on the
second fuel pump and got no help so that pointed to the fuel filter
in the carburetor. I stopped at an Auto Zone store and got two
new filters, I had used my spare the last time I changed it. Now
she was once again wanting to run fast and pull hard and I made
her do just that, I pulled into VA Beach just as the Tuesday morning
rush was starting.
All the temp. gages I have installed enable the old GMC to tell
me how she feels, I always believed her but I have now found out
that she has lied to me. I found it hard to believe some of the
temps. she was reporting so I got another temp. gage and found
that one gage was reading about 20 degrees too low and I was reading
two different temps. with it through a switch. When I was at the
rally in IA I purchased a device that will monitor the temps.
of the front wheel bearings and alert me if the temp. gets too
high. I will get it installed when I get back up to Jeff's in
MD. I also have a sun visor that I want to install but I want
to extend it to give me more shade and will have to fabricate
some brackets to keep it from blowing off.
Till next time, Dallas or Dad if it fits.
Me & My Shadow, with Gertrude, Gus & Keith on the road.