Is That Light I See At The End Of The Tunnel?

Is it possible?  Are we almost done?  After eighteen days of going without an estimate of when they would be finished with our repairs, and thinking we were going to be stuck until early January, suddenly they say we'll be ready to go in a day or two.  The slow and unsure work of the ceiling repair really picked up pace once all the new panels had spent their requisite 24 hours under pressure (one at a time) to let the adhesive cure.  

Taking pressure.
Custom built frame and jacks to apply upward pressure 
on the new 'Soft-Touch' ceiling panels.

But that is a bit of oversimplification, there were a lot of steps to do both before and after the affixing of the ceiling "soft-touch" panels.  Mold abatement was done and then a coating of Kilz was applied to fend off any future spore growth.  Every panel had to be custom cut to fit the space as well as accommodate every air conditioner duct and ceiling puck light, of which there are many.

And because of the way an RV is built it was not possible to duplicate how the ceiling panel finished where it intersected the wall (too tedious to explain).  So to hide what is now an unsightly seam there will be crown molding installed in the entire living/galley area.  We already had a lot of woodwork, the crown molding is really going to put us over the top in that department. 

Crown molding above crown molding.
That's a lot of woodwork in a small space.

Upon our departure from Georgia back in October we had a new maintenance need show itself.  When we went to stow the TV, it is on a lift that retracts into a cabinet for travel, it refused to retract.  The lift motor was dead as a hammer.  We ended up traversing the 1,500 miles to get to Kansas with the TV in its fully extended position.  By the time we got to the maintenance facility the lift frame was bent to hell.  Oh well, the motor couldn't have been fixed by itself anyway.  We were getting a whole new lift regardless.  Which actually worked out well because back in the summer we had bought a new TV in anticipation of being at New Horizons and having them do the modifications necessary to mount it.  It will be a better install with an all new mechanism instead of modifying a ten year old one.  The new TV is the same manufacturer, larger screen but a smaller assembly.  The advancement in TV technology has been significant in the past ten years.  Our new TV has no frame, it is all image edge to edge.  The old TV had a frame around the screen that added about four inches to the width and three inches to the height.  I can now put a larger screen in a smaller space.  Isn't that something?  The new TV is also thinner and weighs about one third of the old TV.  Maybe the new lift will last longer with this lighter load.

Cabinet had to be partially disassembled to access
 "secret" door to TV lift.

The upgrades in the TV didn't end with screen size and weight reduction.  We also went from HD to 4K resolution and added a bunch of  'smart' features.  Many of the popular streaming apps are built in to the TV and for the ones that are not I can now just cast them from my iPad or computer to the TV via my WiFi network.  Coupling this new TV with our existing DirecTV and new Starlink should significantly expand our information/entertainment/communications capabilities.

Exterior work has been coming along too.  All of the slide seals have been replaced.  One guy has been working on those off-and-on for 10 days but it is finally factory-new again.  The fresh water system's accumulator tank with a ruptured bladder has been replace and the front A/C's condensate pump has been replaced.  The big job of repairing the cracks in the front endcap is well underway.  The cracks have been ground out, fiberglass cloth and resin have been applied, lots of sanding and shaping is complete and finishing up with paint and clearcoat is underway.

Large cracks have opened up on each of the five
front clearance lights.  These three center markers
and two outboard markers (not shown).

Cracks patched and smoothing and shaping being done.

Taped off and a coat of fresh paint applied.  Buffing to come.

Paint cured and buffed, clearcoat applied.  Ready to roll.

Another exterior job was the addition of an awning.  When we had the rig built in 2012 we only specified one awning.  We got one that was 16' long, from just above the entry door and ran almost all the way to the front of the camper, effectively providing cover over the entry door and the full length of the bedroom.  We always thought that having a little cover to get in and out of the door in inclement weather would be important and that all the extra length would be nice for sitting in shade on sunny days.  Even with our previous years of RV camping we did not realize just how crucial awning shade would be.  When we are camped and our passenger side is facing south, which oddly is a great deal of the time, we find that solar heating is a huge deal.  With the summer sun bearing down on us we have found that we can extend our awning and change the skin temperature of our rig by 40 degrees!  That's great for the sixteen feet our awning covers of our 37 ft length.  Unfortunately that leaves 21 feet fully exposed, the bulk of which is our living room slide.  In four of our first six years of fulltiming the problem was not too acute.  We were at high elevation and amongst woods so direct sunlight was intermittent at best and ambient temps were mild.  But our last four years found us almost constantly in full sun with our broadside facing south.  A full eight months of the year it was unbearable to sit in our chairs that are in the living room slide during the day.  We had to do something.  An additional awning was about the only option we had.  But because of how awnings extend and retract we could not get one that would be over the slide-out.  The most we could do was a 12.5' long one mounted on the slide-out itself.  That will shield 91 of 168 sq ft of exposed surface.  We'll take it, every little bit counts.

We have awning!

There's just one thing left and it is not going to get done.  Our entry steps are starting to show their age and paint and lubrication aren't really going to do the trick.  So back in July when we made our appointment new steps were on the list of parts to be replaced.  However, six months on and the steps are still listed as on backorder.  It would seem that it is a rare day that an RV is built with our old-school style steps nowadays.  The one factory that still makes them only does it when they have enough orders to make it worth setting up their production line for a run.  Evidently they don't have however many orders that is and won't even hazard a guess as to when they will make a run.  With all the things we had going on this little nuance kind of slipped away and we missed our opportunity to pivot and acquire and do the work to modify the entry for the new design steps (they are radically different).

The Christmas Holiday is rapidly approaching and thoughts are occupied with things that need to be done; to the detriment of ones day job.  It's Thursday and New Horizons is having their employee Christmas party on Friday at 1:00pm.  These folks are making a hard push to get us and other customers here to pick up new rigs out of their hair before then.  They all know that by noon on Friday productivity is going to go to near zero and that it will be very low all the next week in the run-up to Christmas.

We're not complaining.  Quite the contrary, we are highly motivated to leave.  A severe winter storm is bearing down from the north and temperatures are expected to go negative early next week.  Traveling in those temperatures is a no-go for us.  We either have to get out of here before the storm or find a place to hold up until a warm front passes through, which may be weeks.  We're shooting for beating the storm.

Friday has come and things are looking good.  The service folks at New Horizons have pulled it together and got us finished up.  But it is too late and too cold to depart so we were invited to join them for their Christmas party and enjoy a plethora of smoked meats and hearty mid-west side dishes.

But before the chowing down begins I was directed to get my truck and back it into the shop for the night so that I could do all the departure prep work and hitching up in a warm building instead of outside in the 17 degree morning we're supposed to have tomorrow.  Thanks guys, nice touch.

Going to spend our last cold night in a warm building.

We're off in the morning.

Our Rig Is Back To Where It Was Born - Again.

 

So, here we are again, Junction City, KS, home of New Horizons, manufacturer of 5th wheels and maintenance facility.  Sadly we know this place well as we have been here three times in the past ten years prior to this visit, each averaging about a month to get our repairs done.  This time looks to be no different, with the exception that we are in freezing winter rather than scorching summer.

But.... that was the purpose behind our departure from Georgia in mid-October.  We had been suffering from water intrusion that ultimately had damaged three-fifths of the ceiling of our galley/living area.  The leak was insidious, it remained hidden from view for an unknown period of time (at least a year) before a stain finally penetrated several layers of ceiling material and showed itself.  The hunt for the source of the leak commenced but no amount of caulking/re-caulking all the seams of the roof made any difference, the stain continued to expand.  And between Covid and reliability issues with our old truck we weren't in a position to get the rig to professional help for another two years.  But once a new truck had been secured and we knew we could travel with confidence again, we called to get an appointment for what we knew was going to be a big job.  That call was made in early July and we were told the first available slot was the 28th of November!  Oh well, we had already been waiting a couple of years, what's another 5 months.

The wait went fast enough and we built a little fun and family time into our travel schedule.  It could have been a shorter trip both in terms of distance and time but knowing how brutal it was going to be once we got to Kansas we wanted a little pleasure time ahead of that.  

From point to point we logged 1508 miles as a little caravan but we did at least another 1,000 miles of running around in the places we stopped along the way.  A really nice trip with a not so nice destination.

Now the reason for this trip gets underway.  Our departure from Texas was delayed a day due to a really large storm that stretched the entire length of our final leg, and then some.  Leaving Texas early was not an option as the storm had already formed and was on us days before we knew it would last well into our scheduled travel day.  So we made the decision to wait a day and make the drive in dry, albeit windy, weather.

We ultimately arrived late in the day of our scheduled start date but the folks at New Horizons were unphased.  They just hooked us up to power and water for a comfortable nights rest (well, except for removing all our junk from the cabinets, packing in moving boxes and storing in the truck) and took the rig from us at 7:00am the next morning, getting started with the interior demolition work right away.

While the weather was pleasant on our day of arrival, it turned into full-on winter within about 36 hours.  Temperatures dropped to the low 20's overnight and only briefly got above the freezing mark during the day.  We had planned on this being the case and was what was behind the topping off of our propane tanks mentioned in the last post.  However, the work being done on our rig was going to need protection from the elements so we had been moved into warm a building.  Yes!

Protected from the elements in one of the two bays of the 
New Horizons maintenance facility.

First order of business for the interior work was to get everything covered before the demolition start.

Thick cardboard was used to cover the floor and countertops.

Next, all the ceiling fixtures and ducting registers were removed.  It was sad seeing our ceiling fan and our island "chandelier" and all the other ceiling do-dads piled up on a pallet on the shop floor next to our rig.

Ceiling hardware removed.

With all the hardware removed the ceiling is now ready to be stripped and scraped, but not until the whole room (living and galley) is draped and taped.  This is going to be messy and it will be necessary to contain the debris as much as possible.

Taped and draped.  Let the demolition begin.

It was at this point we lost access to essentially everything but our bed.  No couch, no recliners, no refrigerator, microwave, stove or kitchen sink.  We expected this to be part of the process, we didn't expect it would be for more than two weeks instead of a couple of days.  There are fresh foods in that fridge that are not going to last more than a few days.  Not looking forward to de-draping day.

Once the water damaged Soft-Touch ceiling material had been scraped off we could get a good look at the base material, essentially a very thin plywood.  As expected it too showed damage from water but it was still heartbreaking to see.  Mold abatement is going to have to be done.

Much of this is just water staining but there is 
clearly mold present.

And yes, we have continued to live in our RV during all this.  We have to vacate the premises no later than 7:00am and can't return until 3:30pm.  Living in just the bedroom space, where we have access to our closet, bed, bathroom sink, and shower, was okay for a couple of evenings and nights.  But that confined space, which was mostly consumed by the bed, got uncomfortable pretty quick.  Propped up in a sitting position on the bed was brutal on both our backs and we resorted to bringing in camp chairs and setting them up in what little floor space we had.  Cyndee's idea of doing this proved to be a huge improvement in our comfort.

Confined spaces.
Camp chairs for sitting, step stool for an ottoman
Every square inch of surface covered with junk 
from the cabinets of the living area.

In the above photo Cyndee is all set up for doing cross stitch.  She's got her articulated desk lamp and a head lamp to light up her work.  One thing about living in this tiny space is that anything you have is pretty much within an arm's length.

Thanksgiving in North Texas

 Hello Dallas-Ft Worth.

Or to be more specific, Lake Lewisville in a Corps of Engineers campground.

In preparation of our approximately 5 hour drive from Livingston, Tx to Hickory Creek, Tx (the town associated with the campground) we put away in the cargo trailer the few things we got out for our six week stay and got the cargo trailer hitched up to Pepe the night before departure.

The morning of our departure the weather was cooperative and it was just a matter of disconnecting the utilities, pulling in the slides and hitching up.  The roads were essentially interstate the whole way with I-45 being what we spent most of our time on.  The one unpleasantness in this simple plan was that our route went smack-dab through the center of Dallas and its intense traffic.  Traversing the city also required a bit of a "dance", switching from I-45 N to I-30 W to I-35E N with the switch from 30 to 35E being in the middle of a bowl of spaghetti of multiple highways going in all directions and very short ramps.  

As if that wasn't enough stress on its own, both of our GPS' were telling us to set up to take ramps from the wrong lane.  While I managed to make a correction, Cyndee was blocked by traffic and missed the ramp.  She ended up putting on several more miles meandering around to get back on track.  Oddly enough  we only arrived at the campground barely five minutes apart.  Still, Cyndee had a death grip on the steering wheel and it took awhile to get her hands peeled off.  Needless to say, Cyndee is not a fan of Dallas traffic.

We arranged this stop to coincide with the week of Thanksgiving so that we could spend some time with my brother and sister-in-law as well as attend a Thanksgiving Day gathering of about 20 of us at my brother's house.  

Unfortunately COVID reared its ugly head and both my sister-in-law and brother came down with it.  So much for a Thanksgiving gathering.  All of our highly anticipated visiting in person just got reduced to a couple of phone calls.  We'll try again, maybe Christmas or New Years.  If the work on our rig is complete before those holidays then we will be relocated to a lake that is about 3 hours south of my brother's at that time.

With unplanned time on our hands we shifted gears and decided to take in the sights in our general vicinity.  The weather has been pretty dodgy, thunderstorms and cold fronts with high winds.  When the weather breaks for a few hours we pop out and see what the local fare has to offer. 

We can sure tell we have left the more cosmopolitan atmosphere of the Houston metroplex.  Where else would you find horse parking at a local restaurant but in the Dallas-Ft Worth area of North Texas.

Something else I have been enjoying about our campground is that it is directly below and in-between final approach to the two north/south runways of DFW airport.  As the planes go over our position they are still high enough that the noise is barely noticeable but close enough to get a good look at the plane.  On one occasion when I had gone out to take out the trash I looked up and spotted something special.  It was an Airbus A380, the worlds largest passenger jet with seating capacity of 650.

This iPhone photo leaves a little to be desired but it was a highly opportunistic shot and had to get it with what I had.  In my photo it is not easy to see just how huge this thing is nor that it is a double-decker.  So here is a stock photo from Airbus to help with the visualization.

In my professional career the company I worked for heavily competed to be the material of construction for several components of this aircraft.  While we were not successful with Airbus we did get parts on their competitor's aircraft, the Boeing Dreamliner.

So not everything about this week was ad-hoc.  We had to plan for and buy tickets to an ice sculpture exhibition at the Gaylord Texan.  The Gaylord, a hotel resort, is an exhibition in and of itself.  First and foremost it is gigantic, and they don't waste any of the space.  The place is chock-full of hotel rooms, convention center, restaurants, shopping, fountains, seasonal displays and organized 'resort' activities.

The Gaylord Texan in all its sprawling glory.

The Gaylord Texan's hotel atrium all decked out for Christmas

While all the decorations in the hotel were nice to see we came for the ICE exhibition.  Each year the Gaylord converts their convention center into an enormous deep freeze and fills it with ice sculptures.  In true Texas fashion they do it big!  There is a theme each year, usually a child's Christmas story that has been reimagined into a movie.  This year's theme; The Polar Express.

Everything you see is ice.  The train engine in this scene is 
about 12' tall.

Like the Johnson Space Center we went to the previous week, the tickets for this exhibit were timed entry.  And again, you had to wait for your assigned time to enter but once inside you could stay as long as you like.  But at a maximum temperature of 9 deg F inside the exhibit there was little chance of wearing out your welcome.  When buying your tickets you are informed about the "weather" inside the exhibit and advised to wear coats, gloves and hats.  Even at that, once you arrive you are given a large hooded parka to go over whatever you brought.
 

The large portion of the convention center which had been turned into an Artic environment housed all the ice sculptures.  The sculptures were placed in a way so as to tell the story of The Polar Express by reproducing iconic scenes from the movie.  Each scene was more or less its own room and you wove through the rooms, progressing through the story.

The hot chocolate song and dance scene on the train.

In addition to the phenomenal ice sculpture scenes, the appropriate sound track was being played as well.

The below scene was at the North Pole when the elves were trumpeting the arrival of Santa.

To get a better idea of just how big these blocks of ice are I jumped in to give it a little scale.

If this isn't the epitome of a couple of old people
trying to make a selfie, I don't know what is.  Not to make 
excuses but I couldn't feel my hand holding the camera at this point.

We're nearing the end now.  This is where Santa is presenting the bell to Hero Boy.

By the time you get here you have been at single digit
temperatures for a good while.  This kid is a popsicle 
and looking for the exit.

The last sculpture before the exit is not part of the theme but rather the reason for the season.  A simple clear-ice sculpture of the manger scene.  I think this one was Cyndee's favorite.

And what would an exit to an attraction be without a gift shop.

I'm being scolded for photographing Cyndee giving in to her 
gift shop addiction.

Now that we are back in heated space we thought we
would give a selfie one more try.

Our week in North Texas is up but the weather is really working against us.  Rain, some of it freezing, is predicted the whole way from Texas to Kansas the day we are scheduled to travel.  We looked at leaving a day early but the weather would be the same, it is a big storm.  So, even though it will make us a day late for our service appointment we're going to wait out the storm.  Luckily our campsite was open so I added a day and then rescheduled our layover reservation in Oklahoma.

One more day in this little paradise.
Hickory Creek Campground, Lake Lewisville

Bone chilling wind or not, there is one more chore that needs done before departure - propane refill.  After a little searching we found propane at a good price ($21 to fill an empty 40 lb'er) a couple of towns over from where we were camped.  One last little adventure to an industrial section of Denton, Tx,

Sometimes you end up in less glamorous places to get things you gotta do done.  

It's supposed to be seriously cold when we get to Kansas, mid-teens overnight.  A full load of propane will be necessary.

Flurry of Touristing before Departing the Texas Gulf Coast

 

The time for us to depart Livingston is rapidly approaching and we still have things we want to do and see.  So we're getting some timed entry tickets for the Johnson Space Center.  Even though by all appearances COVID is something that is being learned to live with, the Space Center is still following guidelines to minimize crowds.  They only have a certain number of tickets per day and each of those tickets are timed for entry, spread across the whole day.  Visitors are not limited to how long they can stay once they are in, they just can't come in before their scheduled time.  We're going to see and do everything we can so we snagged tickets for the opening hour and then went straight to the front desk to sign up for the different guided tours.

After that there was plenty of time to take in the main gallery where there were displays of actual space capsules, satellites and moon lander and large scale models of space stations.

The exhibits, many of them interactive, were very well done.  You could tell everything was well used but nothing looked run down.  Hours melted away exploring this place.  The guided tours were a whole different ball game.  You were taken by tram to active operations and toured within feet of rocket scientists doing their thing.

One of the tours we took was to the original mission control room for the Apollo landing on the moon in 1969.  The room used for that mission control has been decommissioned but it was in a still active building that was humming with work.  When being taken to the historic control room we were warned multiple times to not talk and walk softly or risk being booted from the building.  They were serious about not disturbing the folks at work.  After ascending a lot of stairs we entered the gallery to the fabled room.  We were seated in the actual chairs that the astronauts wives and dignitaries occupied during the mission.  Across the back of the room were the "phone booths" that the wives could use to communicate to their astronaut husbands when time allowed.

Before us, on the other side of a glass wall, was an immaculately restored control room.  Everything, every console, chair, video screen, even notebooks, headsets and coffee cups had been expertly restored to the exact appearance of that 16th day of July in 1969.

After explaining the restoration project they began running a simulation of the events as they unfolded over the next days.  All screens displayed actual, authentic information and TV broadcasts of the moment of the moon landing, "One small step...." and splashdown back on Earth.

Immaculate restoration, right down to the cigarette butts in the ashtray.

THE moment.  Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon via live
black and white video transmission (on monitor in upper-right corner).

I'm giving away my age here but I have vivid memories of the above exact scene as I watched sitting on the floor of my parents living room.

After returning from the mission control room tour we were back in the main building and continuing our exploration of the museum.  There are a tremendous amount of artifacts and displays to take in.

Between being there mid-week and their timed entry strategy the crowds were minimal.

Displays were extremely well done.

 Next on the guided tour list was the training facility.  This place was awesome.  It is definitely not a museum, it is the everyday workplace for dozens of scientists and engineers.  In this building are full-scale mock-ups of spacecraft and space station modules.  Astronauts come here to train for their missions as well as scientists and engineers developing technology for space travel.

Artemis lunar landing craft.  This is the next space vehicle that will put boots on the moon.
Check out the scale of this thing.  It is standing over three stories tall!

Engineers messing with the tourists.

Not science fiction!  This is a real-deal, big as a man, autonomous robot 
being developed right before our eyes.

Every module on the space station has a full-scale mock up in the training facility. 
This picture is capturing only about half of the whole room.  The interior of this 
room is a tall four stories.

Our last guided tour of the day was a visit to the Saturn V rocket building.

Not a cartoon.  This painting mimics the rocket in the building.

We've all seen these things on TV and in movies but those images just can't project the massiveness that is is evidence when standing next to one.

All off this:

Just to get this little thing off the ground.

Yeah, I know.  These pictures don't convey the enormity we were experiencing.

Next up was the space shuttle Independence.  Again, not a model.  This is the actual multi-missions to Earth orbit shuttle.  And as a bonus it was mounted piggy-back on one of the 747 jumbo jets that would ferry shuttles from their California landing zone to the launch facility in Florida.

It is more than a static outdoor display.  Both the airplane and 
shuttle have extensive museums inside.

Never thought I would get this close to a space shuttle.  Especially one that was configured for flight.

Both the shuttle and the 747 had been modified to house museums and allow visitors to get within inches of the flight deck of each.

There's more but unless you are really into this stuff you may have already quit reading by now.  I'll stop.

All in all it was a really nice way to spend the day.  The last few weeks have been so different from the four years preceding them.  It is nice getting back to doing new things.