Busy, Busy

Karen and Tom rolled in right on time, and unfortunately brought some more cool and windy weather with them, I'm kidding, the spring is reluctant to get going.  We enjoyed HH and dinner together after they settled in.

Then together we set out to put a dent in the local seafood population:-)   We introduced them to Susan's Fish and Chips for some haddock and onion rings, chowder and more.

Then, of course, on Wednesday, dollar oyster day, we went to Billy's where while Karen turned her nose up, we demolished more than 50 oysters between Tom, Jan, and I.  Delish!  Didn't even take any pictures we were so busy:-)

In between the rain drops and wind, we did get a few nice evenings where we could sit outside.

And Jan kept knocking it out of the park with a chicken, bok choy, and shiitake mushroom stir fry over noodles.

We have been fighting an issue with our AquaHot system for some time now.  That is the system that provides domestic hot water as well as interior heat to our coach, either by 2 electric elements or a diesel fired burner.  About a year ago the second element would just quit for what we thought was no reason at all, well we found out there was a leak at a fitting unknown to us until it really poured out.  But even after we fixed it the second element continued to quit now and then.  I called our AquaHot guru, Rudy, and with him on the phone and I doing what he said, we troubleshot everything he could think of to no avail.  Over time, just one of the many stabs in the dark to try to solve this, I found that if I reset the low voltage relay the second element would come back.  The weird thing is though, the low voltage relay has nothing to do with the elements.  It allows you to reset the system after a power outage to enable the diesel burner.  I told Rudy about it and he agreed it made no sense whatsoever, but it was most likely a failing control board.  Well, I figured if I had to go out and press the reset every so often it was better than spending over $500 for a new board.  Well, unfortunately it happened more and more frequently to the point where on a cold morning of 32, it quit and even the diesel balked before running, so I said it was time to bite the bullet.  I knew Karen was getting her AquaHot serviced on the way here, so I called and asked her if she would carry a new board to us, and I would buy it from the place that was working on her coach.  So she brought it along and I installed it, an easy and quick job, and knock on wood, I can report it has worked flawlessly now for more than a week.

The control panel and the board behind it.

 I had mentioned JoJo's before, a favorite Thai restaurant that actually Karen and Tom found initially last year, so they were looking forward to going back, so off we went.

I had a Tom Yum noodle soup that was the bomb!

Now another very important mission was accomplished as well.  The Clam Shack in Kennebunkport with one of the very best lobster rolls in Maine was opening on Friday, of course we had to be there!  Their lobster roll is awesome and very different from every other roll around.  The normal roll is made on a toasted New England hot dog bun, the one with the flat sides, the Clam Shack uses a round roll toasted that has a bit more chew.  It is an absolute favorite of Karen, Tom, and Jan, me, I'll stick to the hot dog roll ones.  So I made up for it with their namesake, one of the absolute best clam rolls I have ever had anywhere!

The awesome clam roll and famous lobster roll,
everything was immensely enjoyed by all

We even went up around the corner to our regular spot overlooking the ocean to eat them, and even though it was cold and windy, the ocean was white capped, we all persevered and savored our lunch outside.

If you remember a few posts back I talked about and had a few pictures of a campground we stayed at in VA where the checkin spot was on such an angle I thought we'd maybe rollover, and the site was so bad we had to unhook, and turn around backwards.  With all the rain we've been having we have experienced a pretty bad leak that initially I thought might be the clearance lights not sealed properly.  And after another hard rain here and the resulting leak, I took a quick look at the clearance lights on our 7' ladder and thought they looked fine.  I said we'd have to rent a 10' ladder and look into it more carefully, but meanwhile Jan, the diesel mechanic, had removed the molding around the windshield and found, lo and behold that the rubber extrusion that holds the windshield had come completely off the fiberglass opening over a space of about 10 inches!  No wonder we had a leak.  The rubber extrusion is formed somewhat like an "H", one side holds the windshield and the other the fiberglass skin of the coach.  It is designed to flex and move and not stress the windshield so is not caulked or glued into place.  With the extreme flexing at that campground we "popped" it out, and on more reflection we thought we had noticed more air noise since, duh.....  So we rented a ladder and I was able to work the rubber back in place, then caulked around the outside between the gasket and the rain gutter.  So now we are confident we have repaired the leak and as a bonus expect it to be much quieter when we travel again.

The top piece is the rain gutter, and the larger rubber part on the bottom
is the extrusion or gasket to hold in the window.
This was before I caulked and cleaned it all up

We had an awesome bowl of haddock chowder that Jan made on a cool evening.

That left another small project to attend to, replacing the 3" inlet hose to our Sani-Con macerator.  Our type of older Sani-Con is not being made any longer, so getting the pieces and parts is becoming more and more difficult, so the worst part of this job was just finding the replacement hose.  A pet peeve is the company that made this used this terrible hose that over time seeps through which causes smell and a mess, hint, hint, come up with a better replacement!

Before

And after

We went with Karen and Tom back to JoJo's and sampled some more deliciousness. 

Karen and Tom's time here is drawing to an end, so today it's back to Billy's to devour who knows how many oysters?  So before they leave I helped, very little by the way, Tom replace the wax valve on their coach to hopefully solve their continuing cooling problem.

We're down to 2 more HH's, 2 lunches including Billy's and a fond farewell on Friday with them heading downeast to Eastport, and Jan and I doing a road trip in the truck to visit our son Jason, Joanne, and their family outside of Buffalo, NY for Memorial Day weekend.