We have been busy catching up on the few, at last, projects to get done before we leave. The weather for us anyway, has not been cooperating. It has been seriously hot and humid, it's always bothered me, but it has even been getting to Jan this year. Maybe we need to go north for the winter:-)
Jan wanted to get the roof cleaned before we planned to wash and wax the coach. It is always a mess here as we park under live oak trees. The leaves drop the whole time we are here and unfortunately stain horribly. We bought a new attachment for the pressure washer this year and were anxious to try it out, an orbital surface washer. We can report it works like a champ!
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| Leaves galore, and you can see the staining |
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| Yes that surface cleaner works! |
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| Looking good |
With our electrical problems and rewiring and installing the new charging system, it came to our attention our chassis batteries had given up the ghost, so after a week or so we got a call they had arrived so we got those replaced.
An easy job except for the fact they each weigh 69 pounds.
We washed the coach and I prepared to address the messed up caulking above the windshield. The manufacturer had installed a rain gutter just above the windshield gasket, and then heavily caulked it. It never lasts more than a season, so I am trying a new tactic this year.
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| I had always used a lot of sealant and it turns out like this |
I got it all cleaned up, a couple hours worth, and then decided to just barely fill the gap, we'll see how that fares this year.
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| All cleaned up and ready for caulk, and dumb me forgot to take a picture of the finished product:-( |
While I worked on the windshield Jan tackled the huge job of waxing the coach, she spread it out over two days and it looks awesome now.
With the hot weather Jan made a fantastic dinner of pasta with marinated tomatoes and shrimp, perfect on a hot and humid day.
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| Delicious! |
I mentioned in my last post that the water valve for our toilet was slowly giving up the ghost. It was becoming very unnerving as after a flush, the water would just keep on rising, and rising, and rising before finally shutting off. We were absolutely dreading the thought of when and if it wouldn't stop, but the part arrived for the rescue. We decided we would try to replace it without completely pulling the toilet out. It was a good plan, but we found out pretty quickly I just couldn't get my big hands in there enough to get it reconnected, so the diesel mechanic, Jan saved the day, as always.
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| Getting the old bad valve out |
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| Jan saving the day by getting the new one installed |
After a little back and forth with Karen and Tom, we have definitely cancelled our Maine trip this year. We felt the extraordinary Covid quarantine and testing requirements were too much. We have successfully for the most part been able to push our reservations and deposits forward to yet another year. We haven't quite finished making our alternative plans yet, but believe it will be basically a straight shot west to AZ and then a loop up and around to reconnect with our previous plans later in the summer. More on that will follow.
Another thing we have been researching and talking about is our cell and data plans while we travel. Right now we have 2 iPhones and an iPad on AT&T, and our mifi or hotspot on Verizon. For the most part since we have been tracking it, Verizon is usually superior in coverage to AT&T out west, but every once in a while the Verizon craps out and AT&T is strong. So we felt splitting our plans would be best. We moved Jan's phone over to Verizon, and I and the iPad will stay on AT&T, that way we should almost always be able to make and receive calls and get data by making a phone a hotspot if necessary, couple that with wireless calling, we should be covered at least 98% of the time if we have any kind of signal. The surprising part though, was the effort and hassle we experienced making that "easy" change. She wanted to keep her phone number, so first you have to port your number from AT&T to Verizon, but then you find out you need an account, but that is difficult if you don't have a phone, so kind of like the chicken and the egg. It took 3 hours, and 3 representatives all on a conference call to make that happen. Then further credit checks and identity verification before your number is ported. But understand once the number is ported then she had no phone on AT&T any more, and wouldn't have her phone on Verizon unless we went and got a SIM card. This was set up with Verizon and we were assured that all we had to do was walk into the Verizon store and it would be waiting for us, no waiting, ha! The closest one was 30 minutes away, so off we went and, of course, when we got there we were told we had to wait at least 30-45 minutes, okay we went and did some errands. We picked up the SIM card after a bunch of obvious problems the guy in the store was having, went back and stuck it in Jan's phone and..................no activation. Back on the phone for 1 1/2 hours, with 3 different departments and finally tech support and got nowhere. WOW. So I mentioned that Jan was planning to get a new iPhone soon and would that make any difference? Sure the tech said, get the new phone, insert the SIM card, and you should be good to go. Okay, we order the phone, have to wait 2 days, Jan has no phone now. The new phone arrived yesterday, we stuck in the SIM card and...............no activation. Too late to call now. So this am, I call Verizon and find out customer service has hours, not 24/7, hmmmm. So at 8:00 when they open, I reach a tech and he tries, no luck either, so I mention that the new iPhone came with a Verizon SIM card already in it, could we activate based on that SIM card instead of the obviously bad one we got at the Verizon store? Of course he says, and he does, so finally now, after 4 days and lots of time and effort Jan now has a new iPhone on Verizon.
So what to do, go out to lunch, and we did.
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| Our delicious Asian lunch, thank you again Jason |
Then one more thing. We got our second vaccine shot yesterday, so far no side effects or extra appendages. Seriously, we feel it gets us closer to normalcy, and are very thankful we were able to get them while still here in Florida!
2 comments:
Couple of thoughts... On the battery terminals you want to put some terminal goop on it. I use CRC 05046. The raw metal interacts with the gunk that ends up on the top of the battery and slowly shorts the battery. It is an aerosol and you might want to spray the end of the leads as well. I got 15 years out the battery in my pickup. Those big storage batteries are heavy and expensive, no news to, you need to protect them.
Also, Verizon customer service is awful. I had been with them back to the GTE Mobilnet days in the 80's and had a direct number to commercial support, not any more, disconnected. After hours trying to get through, listening to their over modulated garbage music,
I drove down the street to T-Mobile. Got 4 new phones including a 12 Pro Max and my bill dropped by $40 per month. In and out in two hours flat. As far as the service out west...Since the T-Mobe and Sprint merger, Sprint was founded by the Southern Pacific Railroad in the 1970's (Southern Pacific Intermountain Communications) they had more towers to cover the odd places. They also took over the radio sites from the Denver Rio Grand Western and Union Pacific before selling the the thing. Verizon was the old General Telephone and had a large presence in L.A., Tampa, Erie, Honolulu, odd, un collected places and their tower sites were better, initially.
Good points. I used to use terminal good until having all AGM's, never experienced any corrosion with them. I will admit I haven't kept them as clean as I should:-) I have my fingers crossed that our 4 big house batteries, Lifeline 4D's are doing very well since 2014????
We have been with AT&T forever and had decent customer service. We use a Verizon hotspot for most of our internet when traveling, and even with just comparing its coverage with our AT&T phones, sometimes it would be better and sometimes, not as often the phones would be better. The switch of Jan's line to Verizon was unbelievable thorough and time consuming although the folks we spoke with were nice, bottom line it was a bad SIM card that the Verizon store gave us that screwed the pooch. All is well now. We have studied the coverage maps quite a bit and used another resource, The Mobile Internet Resource Center. I'm glad the T-Mobile with Sprint is working out for you, obviously your needed coverage and our vary by a lot. I am going to try to copy the coverage maps and I think you can see with both AT&T and Verizon, we will have the vast majority of the country covered. It won't copy into this comment area so I will make a short post and include it in my blog.
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