Memory and Happyness...

For a while, I have been ruminating on memory. On our ability to recall places, moments, thoughts, feelings, sensations...life.

Part of my interest on this subject is due to photography, and how it helps us to remember all the things that we may forget, or at least, it gives that illusion.

Recently, in this cross country trip, I came to a stage, where I am basically re-tracing my tracks from a trip that took place in 2006. I was surprised to find out how in just 4 years, just how inaccurate my memories are from routes and places.

Even with the help of the photographs that I took in 2006, was not enough to locate some of the spots that I wanted to revisit. In some cases I was diligent enough to record the GPS coordinates and properly caption the photos. Only in this manner, the whole thing was helpful.

But, is this a way to live life? Walking around recording data that will help us remember?
Photos, diaries, travel-logs/blogs...all are attempts to preserve memories that inevitably fade with time.

It is true, "time heals everything", because we will forget about just how much something hurt.

Levity Behind & Second Chances Ahead...

It is the last day of 2012.
I am about to start a new year with a chapter of my life neatly closed, as I just sold the Airstream trailer and the big GMC diesel truck that we used to travel and live during 2010 and 2011.

 

The new owner of the Airstream asked me to send him the URL for the blog that I kept during our travels as nomads without a stationary job or home. It was then that I remembered that I have killed this blog. It was no longer online. I remembered that I did this not because we have stopped traveling, but because I considered my preconceived  purpose of the journey a failure: I did not achieve levity.

Ironically, it seems that I came out of the nomadic journey even more hardened on my rigid ways.

 
When I conceived the idea of selling our house and belongings to set out on a nomadic life, I wanted to leave behind a life of...certain type of concerns.
I remember someone referring to my objective as: “Seeking the unencumbered life”

It is true, journeys have a way to make you see more clearly, especially the things you are nor particularly keen on seeing. Lessons if you will.

The first lesson:
Encumbrance comes from within.
Little did I know that I was just swapping certain type of concerns for other types. I need to be more conscious on choosing carefully what I want to be concerned about. And not let the modernity of middle-class-suburban-life-credit-centric-peace-of-mind-with-a-price-tag, mentality dictate what my concerns should be.

 

The second lesson:
Rationality and a strong will are like steel. Reliable only until the point of breakage.
Just like bending a hardened material that will not yield, change only comes comes after an abrupt spectacular breakage. Leaving a task that resembles more re-edification than change.

Still, even after taking stock on these lessons, I look back to the winter of 2009 and I would do it all over again, certainly with a different attitude, but the memories and experiences of the trip are -invaluable-

I am really looking forward for a new year, a new beginning.

Good bye old friends...

All good things must come to and end.
Time came to part ways with our Airstream, and our trusty GMC 2500 diesel.
I was surprised on how emotional I got when the actual time came to part ways with both.

I am happy with the fate of the Silver Whale, the Airstream. It will be the mobile home of the Ericksons, a family from Arkansas that intend to travel full time like we did.

The GMC went to a dealer...who knows what ahead for Blue Bailout.

Goo, it is a good thing.

Things around a RV are bound to rattle, shift and become...unglued.
I have tried a number of different glues to deal with such occurrences, specially inside the trailer.

I have tried a number of variations of Crazy-Glue with mainly disappointing results.
Recently a couple of Formica covered surfaces started to peel-off (again) and I ran out of Crazy-Glue.

So I tried the only glue that I had handy: Shoe Goo
I have used this Goo to repair hiking boots with good results. This glue is very sticky, thick and you can build it up to fill cracks and gaps.

Well, to my surprise, it worked wonders around the RV!
So, from now on, I will try to keep at least in tube handy.

Jacked up...

Getting things around your RV malfunction sucks, but it sucks a little less when they malfunction near to a nice RV repair shop.

While enjoying our visit to Albuquerque, when we tried to un-hitch, we discovered that our electric tongue jack was not working. This is the second time our electric jack acts up. The fist time was months ago in Canada while in Calgary. At that time, the culprit was water getting into the electric system of our Baker Level Rite 3000. This electric jack has a level bubble on its top, which is a nice touch. Unfortunately, that level bubble lets water right into the electric switch that operated the electrical motor.



At that time, we dried off the water, reconnected everything, and sealed the edges of the level bubble with silicon.



This second time around, the problem was not water. We feared a busted motor (~$300+ Labor), but some testing for 12v current reaching the jack circuits, suggested that maybe we had a bad cable somewhere.

We became acquainted with the "emergency/manual" procedure to operate the electric jack in case of malfunction. In the case of the Level Rite 3000, the procedure involved unscrewing 2 5mm allen bolts and remove the electric head to expose a T slot that can be operated with a small T wrench. Even with this small wrench, we needed to remove the propane tank cover, which is way too close to the jack. We realized that this close tight design wold limit our options to install a new electric jack (some are bigger than the Level Rite 300) and eliminates the option to install a manual operated jack.

We end up taking the whole thing for repair to the local Camping World. The service was fairly quick, and the mechanic confirmed that it was a bad cable. It was not clear how such a heavy duty cable went bad. According to the mechanic, motors like this, that go up and down, if reversed direction too quick, they will overload the cable or blow the fuse. But since our motor was equipped with a 30 amp slow blow fuse, the fuse did not blow, but the cable did.



The repair involved getting rid of the 30 amp slow blow fuse, and installing a regular fuse hook. A 40 amp fuse was installed and we will look for a 30 amp circuit breaker later to put in place.


So, after this, we are back at hitching up by the flick of a switch.
After this experience, I would say that for this size trailer, a manual jack is just fine, and one less thing to break and worry about. But as it turns, in our case this was not an option.

Is it winter yet?

We started our cross country RV journey with winter weather, and it looks like as our X-Mas break is approaching, we are closing 201o with record breaking low temperatures.

I think we turned on our furnace for the first time after this summer, about a month ago in the Coyote Buttes wilderness area. Then, I think the temperature was dropping into the 30's F early in the morning.

But as soon as we crossed into Colorado, we got our first snow and brutal dips into the 10's F
A couple of weeks ago, while camping in Raton Colorado, about 2 AM our furnace stopped heating.
I woke up because I could hear a clicking sound coming from the area where the furnace is, and the vents were blowing cold air.

I feared the worst, a busted furnace. I checked the stove for flame to make sure we had propane. The flame at the stove was very weak....I went out (14F) to check the propane tank levels: Both empty!



I have been checking the tank levels every two weeks. Last winter (cold spring) each tank was lasting 2 weeks.

The owner at our KOA campground heroically got up at 2AM an helped us by filling up one tank to heat us for the rest of the night.
Next morning we filled up both tanks, and checked for leaks. When the local RV repair place heard that we filled the tanks 2 weeks ago...their diagnostic was a busy furnace! Apparently in this part of the country, you can expect to use 1 gal of LP per day when the temperatures drop this low.

The night when we ran out of LP, I tried to use the roof Heat Pump, but it was too cold for the unit to heat the 14F cold air, and the panel was automatically reverting to the furnace. This event prompted us to buy a heater that we have seen in the rigs of some experienced RVers that we have meet in the road.


We have been using this electric ceramic heater and it is great. It is very compact, heats great, rotates, and has a thermostat so it auto shuts off when it reached the desired temperature.


Here is Vicky with our friends Helen and Curt in Albuquerque New Mexico. The temperature up there in the Sandia Mountains was 14F, but the wind chill was brutal, we took this shot and went back into the car.

Now we are faced with the dilemma of keep exploring some beautiful areas when are practically deserted because the low temperatures...or run south to warmer temperatures, where surely we will be more crowded.

New Tires...

OK, finally some more RV'ing related stuff to write about.

The time for new tires for Blue Bailout (our 2009 GMC 2500 Sierra truck) finally arrived.
About a month ago, when I did the 25,000 miles tire rotation ( I rotate tires every 5,000 miles) the technician, told me that this was probably the last rotation that I will get on those tires. He gave me a gauge that you can insert in the thread and see a green, yellow and red zone indicating acceptable level of wear. The tires were barely in orange...

The truck came equipped with Bridgestone tires:
V-Steel Rib 265 LT245/75R-16/E1 120S

These tires are rated for 50,000 miles, and I was getting close to the end at 25,000 miles!
I managed to squeeze another 4,000 miles, and decided to get new ones.

I decided to go for a set of Michelins LTX M/S rated for 65,000 miles.

Here are some intersing tire related tid-bits. Did you know that...

• If you put diferent size tires on your Allison Tranmision equiped truck...you void the warranty?
• Tires rated at high millage are harder.
• Harder tires "chunk-out" (get chunks of tread off) in rocky off road conitions when they spin-off (especally the ones on the back of the pick-up)
• To Avoud "chunking-out" use 4x4 so the back tires are less prone to spin-off

We will see if we get better life on these new Micheine tires. I was not impressed with Bridgestone.