Strolling Amok

Pops goes on tour.

Archive for the category “Daily Life”

07 May 2013

Town Talk

Wickenburg is packed with remarkable street sculptures. This one is parked outside a jewelry and home decor shop. Every one is perfectly intact, which makes me wonder how that can be. Maybe would-be young vandals are too busy working and saving up for ATVs.

Wickenburg is packed with remarkable street sculptures. This one is parked outside a jewelry and home decor shop. Every one is perfectly intact, which makes me wonder how that can be. Maybe would-be young vandals are too busy working and saving up for ATVs.

Originally posted 4/16/2013

Monday in Wickenburg Arizona was a big day – and I didn’t even know about it! That’s what I get for not checking the town’s event calendar more closely. But, I still saw more than enough to fill my visual gullet.

Project One was to get one of the two 30# propane tanks refilled. I was going to simply do that as part of my town tour and grocery shop, but the 30# tank is tall and easily tipped over in the truck’s bed, so I had second thoughts about parking on a side street with the bed cover open and all the stuff in the bed exposed. So, I made a special trip into town to fill it and minimize the downtime for the refrigerator/freezer.

Uh-oh. Tow vehicle looks low, and there's a tow truck.

Uh-oh. Tow vehicle looks low, and there’s a tow truck.

Approaching one of the two wide washes that Rincon Road passes through, I saw a couple of ATVers in an unhappy situation. Their all-wheel-drive van and cargo trailer were stuck in the soft sand of the smaller wash. See? My paranoia about the nature of the sand here is based on what I’ve observed in my two weeks here, not mere imagination. One guy was taking pictures, while the other was talking to the driver of a towing service’s flatbed tow truck. The tow truck was in the road and, having conventional two-wheel drive, wouldn’t make it far into the wash. I drove past and then remembered I had a  Read more…

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07 May 2013

4WD Adventure Day!

Why include this in a post about rugged he-man adventure? Because this little bugger was just below my trailer window, peeping loudly and pecking at a dead branch on the ground, looking for bugs. Every day is an adventure for a woodpecker in the low desert.

Why include this in a post about rugged he-man adventure? Because this little bugger was just below my trailer window, peeping loudly and pecking at a dead branch on the ground, looking for bugs. Every day is an adventure for a woodpecker in the low desert.

Originally posted 4/14/2013

For the last couple of days, my sense of accomplishment and rugged individualism has taken a beating. I was so proud to have hauled the Enterprise up a somewhat steep, rough grade to this campsite. Then, two days ago, four or five travel trailers and fifth wheel trailers came up the same path in order to assemble as a group somewhere between a quarter and a half mile away.

Many RVers like to circle the wagons. I took this from the Enterprise. They look like they're close, but this was shot with a 300mm zoom lens

Many RVers like to circle the wagons. I took this from the Enterprise. They look like they’re close, but this was shot with a 300mm zoom lens

They’ve been buzzing past in an assortment of ATVs along the path I’m camped beside, seemingly every half-hour. Dust! One of them was unmuffled, and could be heard anywhere within a mile. They finally packed up and left today, and I drove over and gave the last trailer’s occupants my  Read more…

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07 May 2013

The Path Less Traveled

Well, it's a little easier to travel after a road grader has smoothed it out a little.

Well, it’s a little easier to travel after a road grader has smoothed it out a little.

Originally posted 4/12/2013

Today was working on writing, and then touring just a bit, and winding up doing laundry in town. Wickenburg is big enough to have numerous modern strip malls up and down Wickenburg Way. The laundry is a bit pricier than Quartzsite’s, but at the one I went to, all the machines were new front-loaders. It was a bit much to ask that my filthy grease-stained jeans would come clean, but they made a rousing try of it. This is actually my last pair of jeans, as the other three promptly disintegrated long ago, one right after the next. I’m still trying to figure that out. I still gots me some work pants, if it comes to that. The heat is such (90 today) that I’m actually starting to wear shorts.

The trail I’m on winds up a very high hill once you pass my campsite. I’d first planned to move the trailer to a primo spot a couple hundred feet away. With all the other campers gone (except for somebody in a TT like mine that parked a half-mile away this morning), I have my pick of the litter up here. Thing is, when I walked over to an even nicer spot, the drone of bees once again caught my attention. There was a constant whirl of them over by a cactus and they looked pretty preoccupied by swarming around, so I figured it was not meant to be. I can live with that, as it melds nicely into my lazy nature anyway.

From the top of the hill, you can barely see the Enterprise, a tiny cube next to a tree, just to the right of center.

From the top of the hill, you can barely see the Enterprise, a tiny cube next to a tree, just to the right of center.

So I climbed into the Furd and went on up the trail to see what I could see. The answer: plenty. It was a fairly steep climb in one section, and the rear tires were slipping a bit on the  Read more…

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07 May 2013

Ahhh, West and Wewaxation at Wast!

Ready for... Laundry Day, don't you think?

Ready for… Laundry Day, don’t you think?

Originally posted 4/11/2013

Well, the process is over. Pull a wheel and hub. Head into Wickenburg to drop off the hub for bearing removal and replacement, and get the tire dealer to swap the rubber donut for new. When a hub is ready, pick it up and return to install it on the trailer and pull another. Rinse and repeat. It took several days because service on the hubs couldn’t be instant. Total, $844.22 for four tires, three bearing sets with seals, and the labor to pound out the old and pound in the new. Plus, a spare bearing and seal set to carry on the road.

See the label still on the rear tire? I'm done, with about and hour and a half to go before sunset.

See the label still on the rear tire? I’m done, with about and hour and a half to go before sunset.

Just for morbid curiosity, I also pulled the new hub that had been replaced in Quartzsite. Expecting to find an abundance of grease, I found everything clean and dry, with just a whisper of clean grease wetting the tapered rollers. That’s not the usual practice. The mechanic here expressed his preference as, “If a bearing fails that I put in, it’s not going to be for lack of grease. These things heat up.” I slopped more in with my grease gun and a weird stem that is handy for reaching into such areas. So I’ve done all I can do, and it’s now merely a matter of hub touchy-feely and watching for tilted wheels once I hit the road again.

But that won’t be right away. I can stay here for up to another week if I like, and I’ve been concentrating on getting the repairs done. I’ll likely do laundry and food shop soon, as well as tour the area and walk around Wickenburg, which is a peculiar little town. Much of it is modern and relatively upscale, and some spots here and there are kind of eclectic Old West in their own way. But, I have yet to climb out of the Furd, apart from the two repair places involved. I can say that the people I’ve dealt with as well as those wandering in for one reason or another are “un-urban”. Low key, open, and they’ll just wander over  Read more…

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07 May 2013

Plan the Work…

"The Jail Tree - From 1863 to 1890 outlaws were chained to this tree for lack of a hoosegow... escapes were unknown"

“The Jail Tree – From 1863 to 1890 outlaws were chained to this tree for lack of a hoosegow… escapes were unknown”

Originally posted 4/8/2013

Checking the weather forecast for today shows a cloudy and high wind day, with wind gusts up to 50 MPH. Much of that wind will be from the south, directly onto the driver’s side of the trailer. That means I had better angle the solar panels down and strap them, as well as anchor the wheel chocks in case the trailer itself is tempted to shift. Done. This simple procedure took about an hour this morning, and unstrapping later will take more than that because of the poor quality of the cheapo Chinese ratchet strap mechanisms. The straps themselves are also wearing because of fluttering in the wind. Time to revise that system, probably with something rope-based.

My “action plan” this week is to get the trailer back up onto its feet and end the ongoing spate of problems with wheel bearings and tires. Since the remaining three old tires are potentially fragile, they must be replaced. With the wheel bearings in doubt, any road crisis involving use of the Axle Crutch would require severely overloading the remaining tire on that side. Doing that to an aged tire already at its load limit would  Read more…

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07 May 2013

El Cojinete está Muerto

Umm, the hub is not supposed to droop down like that.

Umm, the hub is not supposed to droop down like that.

Originally posted 4/6/2013

The title to this post means The Bearing is Dead. This is the second wheel bearing to disintegrate, this one 115 miles after being lubed and reinstalled. The good news is that the hub did manage to be able to be pulled off after a few hearty yanks, and the complete bearings (less loose tapered rollers) came off with it. That’s far superior to what happened on the last bearing failure. I wasn’t able/willing to pound out the bearing races held inside the hub, and made my way to Wickenburg to find a shop that could apply the necessary brute force. The automotive shop in Wickenburg wasn’t really open, this being Saturday, but people were there so I dropped off the hub and they’ll get to it Monday. I also need to drop off the rest of the bearing parts so they can try to match up what I’ve got.

While in town, I picked up a 2-ton floor jack on sale for $25, a replacement fire extinguisher for the trailer ( the 25-year-old one registered zero on the pressure gauge), a metal file, an abrasive sponge, and some fine grit wet/dry sandpaper. But let me describe how I got to this point, with the trailer wheel up and hub off. I didn’t want to try to hoist the affected wheel with the crappy scissors jack again, so I figured I’d press the F-250’s jack into service. That didn’t turn out  Read more…

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07 May 2013

Smartweigh: Geekoid Nirvana

Originally posted 4/5/2013

George and an accomplice read scales and note the numbers on a clipboard.

George and an accomplice read scales and note the numbers on a clipboard.

Originally posted 4/5/2013

Had Dickens been at my Smartweigh at the Escapees North Ranch in Congress, Arizona he would have summarized it as, “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” Although the Smartweigh is a safety-oriented number-crunching exercise, with terms like GVWR, GCWR, and GAWR, I’ll try to make the explanation of it as understandable as possible. The Executive Summary: As far as the numbers go, I’m looking good – much better than I thought. The bummer is the remaining three “original” trailer tires themselves, and the weight distributing hitch. Even though I’m not overloading any tires, it would be a real good idea to lose some weight. I’ll show you why.

The Escapees’ Smartweigh system is much better than your typical truck stop scales, which weigh the tow vehicle, the trailer, and then both. All that does is give you a “yes, no, maybe so” result that tells you if the individual units are overweight.

 

A typical North Ranch street. Wide and paved. Housing ranges from park models to modular to conventional.

A typical North Ranch street. Wide and paved. Housing ranges from park models to modular to conventional.

For $55 for a truck and trailer weigh-in, the Smartweigh test coughs up individual loads on each tire. Because RVs typically load their tires and suspensions very near their load carrying limits, and do not distribute those loads evenly, it’s common to have an RV weigh in under the maximum limit, and yet be overloading one or more tires. In order to get “worst case” numbers, the RV is supposed to go into the test with all fuel, propane and fresh water tanks full, while all waste tanks are to be empty. This is the normal travel mode.

For the record, the majority of RVs tested so far have overloaded something beyond its limits. That presents a safety problem, sometimes a legal liability problem in case of an accident, and it accounts for many interesting, unplanned road adventures. It’s a fair question to  Read more…

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05 May 2013

It’s Up!

One of many valet parking stations at the toney Biltmore Fashion Center in Phoenix.

One of many valet parking stations at the toney Biltmore Fashion Center in Phoenix.

Originally posted 12/19/2012

No surprise, the iMac is back on its feet after a day trip to Mac Service Experts in Phoenix. They replaced the defective Seagate HDD under Apple warranty and restored it using my backup drive, again at no charge. Word on the street is that even Seagate’s replacement drives are occasionally failing, which in my guess places Apple in a difficult and potentially costly position. I’m hoping that they change HDD suppliers, but that’s just me.

While waiting, I went out for breakfast, hit a local Ace Hardware for some tubing for a future fresh water tank filter install, and toured the nearby Biltmore Fashion Center. It’s a bit like the Oakbrook Shopping Center in Illinois, but with less open space between the rows of stores. The South side is packed with valet stations and gated validation parking areas, so I wedged the F-250 into a slot in the freeform riff-raff parking on the  Read more…

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05 May 2013

It’s Up! It’s Down!

The Command Center's status is inoperative, sir!

The Command Center’s status is inoperative, sir!

Originally posted 12/15/2012

Oh, the irony. Friday night, I was using the computer to convert a file from one format to another, an intensive process. After I had dinner and checked progress, I found it stalling, with the one-month-old internal hard drive loudly click-clacking like a grandfather clock with a bad limp. There was no way to get an orderly shutdown, and once forced, it can’t boot up at all once the drive starts up. Ka-WHACK, ka-WHACK! I could be wrong, but I’m convinced that the hard drive itself has gone bad, which is ironic because it was installed under warranty to replace the working OEM drive that was simply at risk of going bad. I haven’t had much luck with Seagate drives over the last decade, though Western Digital’s track record hasn’t been perfect for me, either.

Now I’ll have to impatiently wait until Monday to call my Mac place in Phoenix to see what they say about warranty coverage and replacement drive availability. (There’s no way a mere mortal can open an iMac up – it is nothing but a glass face and a 1-piece aluminum clamshell.) I was about to send a guy some photos of a car he recently bought, one that had been featured in my former blog The McHenry County Vintage Car Gazette, but that’s not possible anytime soon, now! Dang!

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04 May 2013

In Search of a Haircut

Originally posted 11/9/2012

My Internet search for a barbershop in Quartzsite turned up just one entry, a shop next to my laundromat. The next closest was 15 miles away. Unfortunately, this barber shop has vacated, since its owner has retired.

The guy who ran the laundromat is a friendly and very helpful guy, and told me that three exist. There was a cheapest one next to another laundromat in town, but he recommended one that was on my way back the trailer.

IMGP3878wtrmkd

That turned out to be Donna, who works out of a converted Jayco Recon ZX toy hauler (a travel trailer built to include space for motorcycles or ATVs in the rear). In her rig, this space was now her barber shop and massage therapy office. All she has to do to open for business is to pull down the big loading ramp and the huge screen that can enclose the rear opening. An 8′ x 8′ window is not a bad view while you’re getting your hair trimmed, I can tell you.

Her choice of a toy hauler is appropriate. She likes to ride her Harley Read more…

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