Rock crawling in St George, Utah

We were doing our usual rock-crawling thing last October and November in St. George, Utah and then Elephant Butte, New Mexico with the FMCA 4-Wheelers. Then in early January my life dramatically changed when diagnosed with prostate cancer, more about this later.

So we left off last time with the passing of our sweet Sassy the Corgi – we still often think of her and dearly miss her.  She was a very special pet and can never be replaced but after only three days, I couldn’t stand it any longer and we called the breeder in hopes of getting another Corgi as soon as possible.  Jamie was very understanding and we made the 120 mile trip to the Austin, TX area and looked at two possible doggie candidates to add to our family.  Jamie had Sarah, nine years old that she was willing to part with and then Luna, a three or four year-old female that Jamie was going to breed.

Sarah and Trekkie

They were both sweet dogs, Sarah and I hit it off right away and Luna took to Jane.  We would have picked Luna since she was much younger than Sarah but she wasn’t going to be available for several months while she had and raised a litter so we left with Sarah as our newest family member to attempt to fill the void that Sassy left. Like people or even identical human twins, dogs have a distinctive personality and we quickly realized that Sassy and Sarah while Corgis on the outside were completely different on the inside.

Sassy loved to play fetch, Sarah not at all.  Sassy was always plastered right next to Jane while on a couch but Sarah is happy just being nearby.  Sassy was good off-leash and we could walk her off-leash on the ranch but unless Sarah is on a leash, she will immediately head for the nearest pile of poop for a quick snack. Differences aside, we love Sarah and have no regrets about bringing her home.  Oh, one thing Sarah likes to do that Sassy didn’t is riding in the Jeep.  Sarah is perfectly content to be with us while banging and crashing in the Jeep – Sassy hated that!  Jane and I have been toying with the idea of perhaps adding Luna to the family as well so Sarah can have a doggie buddy.

After a very fun fall we headed home for the winter but unfortunately winter beat us home and we had an extreme cold snap with several days of lows 20-25F mid-November.  This was hard on the antelope and we lost three or four babies and at least one adult, very sad to see an animal die especially a baby.

Atlas PV-10P lift

On a lighter note I made a major addition to the shop – a vehicle lift like you would see at a garage.  I enjoy doing all of the maintenance and upgrades on the Jeep and since it has a hard life (and I need to trust its performance) all of the fluids get changed every winter.  It’s not a simple engine oil change – I also change the differential and transfer case fluids and this year the transmission fluid.  While I enjoy the work, my body doesn’t and I couldn’t take lying under the Jeep and attempting to work on it any longer so I looked into buying a two post vehicle lift – drive the Jeep between the posts, position the lifting arms under the frame and push a button to lift the Jeep.

After quite a bit of research I decided to purchase and install an Atlas PV-10P 10,000 pound lift from Greg Smith Equipment in Austin, Texas.  Jane and I drove there, picked out a lift and accessories, had it loaded on my big trailer and off it went to its new home.  Installed it in about a week and immediately started using it- wow and wow.  It’s wonderful to stand under the Jeep and work on it now, so much easier and it is a bunch more fun.

Then the hammer fell.

I had a scheduled annual physical with my primary care provider at the VA and he noticed my PSA had risen from the high 3s to a low 4.  A PSA of 4.0 is generally considered a trigger point for further investigation, the Doc did a digital exam and said the prostate felt hard on one side and a urologist confirmed that.  Soon after I had a prostate biopsy and not so good news – cancer.  Mostly a low grade (Gleason 3+3) cancer but there was a lot of it on the left side.  Talk about a life-changing event – this was it for me.  Never in my life have I been confronted with such a serious health issue and even though I’m a Christian who believes in the gift of eternal life, I was worried and scared.

Fast-forward past research, investigation, wondering and worrying we were given a name of a prominent Urologist at the world famous MD Anderson Cancer center in Houston to consult with. After discussing the various options with John W Davis, M.D., we decided on a robotic assisted radial prostatectomy.  This consisted of Dr. Davis sitting at a console and remotely manipulating the tools at the end of the robot arms of the da Vinci machine for 2.5 hours.  Most prostates are small, about the size of a walnut and excising the gland is very difficult since it has critical nerve bundles on both sides and the urethra runs right through it.  (I’ve learned more about the prostate this year than I ever cared to know.)

Dr. Davis has performed over 2,000 of these procedures in the ten years or so the machine has been approved so thanks to his skill and experience he was able to spare some of those critical nerves.  Now begins another waiting game.

If subsequent PSA tests show a zero PSA, then the cancer is gone, if not I have some residual cancer cells left and I would most likely need a series of radiation treatments.  So we aren’t necessarily finished with the cancer beast, I pray so but time will tell.

For those who have prayed for me during this most difficult time, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I know for a fact prayers work and they did in this case.  Please continue to pray for me that I will have a zero PSA in the future and Dr. Davis excised all of the cancer.

Demolition of the old carpet and tile

If all of this wasn’t enough to deal with, we made an appointment many months ago with Ernie Eckberg Remodeling and Repair in Weatherford, Texas to get all new flooring installed in the coach for the last two weeks of February.  Ernie is booked a year in advance so I wasn’t about to give up my appointment slot with Ernie even considering my prostate surgery – we would somehow make this work.  So we took the coach to Ernie and I stayed there for a week helping Ernie pull up the old carpet and chip up the old tile and then had to leave to make pre-surgery appointments at MD Anderson.  Since travel is still somewhat difficult for me, Jane and a girlfriend drove up to Weatherford yesterday and Jane will drive the coach home today – can’t wait to see it in person.

New flooring – driver’s area

All finished! Beautiful!

She wasn’t quite herself for a few days while we were winding up our five week stay in the Montrose, Colorado area but we thought she was having a re-occurrence of altitude sickness since we’ve had her at 13,000 feet elevation while Jeeping in the San Juan mountains.  We returned home September 9 and she seemed okay and was eating.  On September 10, she had breakfast, was a little lethargic but still managed to jump up the five steps up into the coach.  Jane noticed she was having labored breathing and made an appointment for the vet late in the afternoon.  After lunch Sassy was much worse and we sped her to the vet (25 miles away) and Sassy passed away about ten minutes before we reached the vet’s office.

She had a good checkup in April and seemed healthy, for her to expire so quickly was (and is) a shock to us and the veterinarian.  The guess as to the cause of death was some kind of cardiovascular problem, she might have thrown a blood clot.  The good news in this situation is that she didn’t suffer and had a great, full and happy life.

Sassy loved to play fetch and John made it a point to play with her every day after lunch whenever possible, she loved to play so much she would keep it up until her tongue turned purple.  Sassy loved the water and would never miss an opportunity to jump into a swimming pool, pond, stream or one of our water troughs we keep for the ranch animals.

Sassy was the breeder’s (Overo Pembroke Welsh Corgis) first champion (and an international champion) and had more accolades and accomplishments than many members of congress.  She was our “kid” and like all kids she required a lot of ‘maintenance’ and was naughty at times (like rolling around in deer or rhea bird poop) but she gave back ten fold in companionship and love.

Please enjoy along with us the many, many fond memories of Ch. Overo Finished With Style, PT CGC (Sassy.)

Sassy’s championship moment

This is right after we brought Sassy home

Sassy in bluebonnet flowers

Sassy exploring in the San Juan mountains

Sassy, John, and our good friends Ruth and Lester in the San Juan mountains

Sassy looking for food or something to play with – either one is plenty good

John & Sassy in the high tundra

John & Sassy in Silver Basin, San Juan mountains

Sassy in the Freightliner waiting room

Sassy about five years ago

Sassy & Golda having a community event together

Sassy doing what she loved

Sassy the water dog

Waiting room at the Grand Junction, CO Cummins Dealer

Animas Forks, Silverton, Colorado

Sassy in a mountain stream

So that’s the big news of the month for us, there’s actually lots that have been going on with us and the critters, so let’s dig in…

We went to a nearby RV get-together with our San Antonio-based Winnebago club on a

3-23-2014 – baby Sunny is born!

mid-March weekend and returned home on a Sunday.  We were putting things away from the trip, looked out to the front pasture and there’s a BABY DONKEY.  WHAT?  We were wondering if the jenny was pregnant or just way over weight and thank goodness she wasn’t way overweight.  That’s the good news.  The not so good news is the baby is a boy and we will have to get it gelded later this year, oh well, we had a 50-50 chance of it being a jenny and not a jack.  But oh my gosh he’s cute and soft and literally growing like a weed.

Today we had our veterinarian make a ranch call to give the adult donkeys their booster vaccines, immunize the baby (“Sunny”)  for the first time and to worm all three.  Even though the donkeys were in a small pen, the Doc and I had our hands full trying to get a noose around the adults and then to grab and hang on to baby Sunny (the ‘baby’ is probably the size of a Great Dane dog but stockier).

Sunny is about two months old here

While we were trying to catch Moonpie (the yearling), I was standing with my arms outstretched trying to cut off his avenue of escape and he ran over me and knocked me to the ground, I got up and then the jenny ran me over about five seconds later and knocked me back down to the ground.  Good grief donkeys, calm down.  Doc, the donkeys and I were thrilled when the event was over and I could release the donkeys from jail, this was worse than trying to herd cats.  (They were penned up for a little over two days and the three of them ate an entire bale of hay, holy cow guys!)

So then in late April we point the coach/Jeep/us to the west and head for Moab, Utah again for an FMCA 4-Wheelers rally.  We’ve gotten to know lots of the people and really enjoy the

John on an overlook in Moab – it snowed on us (this is early May!)

camaraderie and how well everything is organized and managed.  I’m now the club’s webmaster so I appreciate the confidence they have in me.  The club is growing at an exponential rate, we seem to add 20-50 new members every few months and the total membership now

Two desert flowers, Jane and the other kind!

measures about 400.

This is what a totaled custom Jeep looks like after a big oopsie

There was quite a bit of drama this year at Moab with three rollovers on the trails, well, actually one of them was a pitchpole backwards.  John Cox was climbing a very steep grade on the hardest trail in Moab and was backing up to reposition for another try and he went backwards down the grade, hit the bottom and flipped backwards (check out this video, he’s near the end.)  I know John and he’s an excellent driver, had an extremely well built and capable trail rig but things happen.  John only had a bump on the head and he’s okay but his completely custom built $100k 4 door Jeep is not okay.  The flip actually broke the Jeep’s frame and I just heard the insurance company totaled the Jeep, so John is having another Jeep built – I hope to see it this October when we return to St. George, Utah for more wheeling.

Me going down Wipe Out Hill

Then another guy (I know him fairly well) made a mistake on a hard trail (before the rally officially started) and wound up on on his roof.  Yikes.  He has no roll bar (bad mistake)

Pier rolls over but he’s fine

– you can’t see from this picture, but the passenger side of the windshield is almost completely flattened.  Fortunately his wife was not with him or this situation could have resulted some serious injuries for the passenger.  The other rollover resulted in some relatively minor damage, I just talked to the Jeep’s owner and he expects to get it back from repairs very soon.

Here’s one video of me doing a couple of difficult obstacles:

On a less exciting note, I’ve been getting into some arts and crafts projects with the new

My copy of a cat made from sheet steel with a plasma torch

plasma torch (a Hypertherm Powermax45) and some other new tools (a midi lathe and scroll saw – a man can’t have too many tools.)  I’ve made some metal art from sheet steel and I’m having fun making whirligigs from some plans I purchased.  This fall and winter I’ll be crankin’ up the tools and will be making many more of each.

One of the whirligigs I made

We head out early next week for the summer, first stop is Amarillo to have a fun July 4th with some dear friends, then we point the bus north to Forest City, Iowa for the Winnebago Grand National Rally, then we are going back to Montrose, Colorado for about five weeks to run around the San Juan mountains with our Jeep club there.

God Bless, do good work, and be kind to everybody (oh, and pray for our country – it needs it desperately!)

Okay, not for life as we know it but for those of you using Windows XP, Microsoft will completely drop support (like security updates) for Windows XP effective April 8, 2014.  Here’s a road map for end of life for their other operating systems (which may change in the future like it did for XP.)  I think I remember official support for XP was supposed to be dropped a few years ago but MS (Microsoft) discovered that it was still in widespread use both in businesses and for personal use (and still is.)  Time to move on.

Jane has an older small form factor PC in her office running XP and she just used it for email and some light web browsing and it worked fine for those tasks.  The hardware wasn’t very fast and it didn’t have much memory but it ran XP okay and it was good enough.  It was time to move Jane’s PC to something else and I was originally going to install the free Linux operating system Ubuntu on it but she has a few hidden object games that only run on Window machines and there was a couple of other considerations at play. The hardware was too old and slow for Windows 7 or 8 (and an OEM copy of Windows 7 is about $100!) So what to do…

I started looking around on the Internet for inexpensive PCs and focused on refurbished models.  After a bit of surfing I came across overstock.com – they had quite the selection of not-that-old PCs running mainly Windows 7.  For $200-250 you can pick out quite a nice

Jane’s “new” refurb HP 6000 Pro

PC with 4 Gb of memory with hard drive sizes of 250 Gb and up.  I chose this HP model with Windows 7 professional 64-bit, 1 Tb drive, 3 Gb CPU and 4 Gb of RAM and it was about $250.  Shipping was free but took about a week.  The unit was in very nice cosmetic condition and very clean on the inside.  The only issue with the purchase I discovered was that there was only a VGA output for the monitor which meant it was going to be very low resolution graphics and text.  Since I installed a higher resolution graphics card in Jane’s old desktop, I simply moved it over to the “new” PC. (Higher resolution means either a DVI or HDMI connector is required.)

So if you buy a refurb PC from overstock.com, be certain what kind of graphics capability the machine has before you click on the buy button.  A small form factor PC usually requires a low profile graphics card and if you need to add one, they aren’t that easy to find.

Anyway, Jane’s “new” PC is fast and should serve her for years to come.

The big news from our last update was our completely unexpected major repair on the coach engine and the purchase of a new car – two related events.  I’m sorry I left a few readers in suspense over details about the cost of the engine repair, I answered an email a few days ago from somebody who asked what the outcome was.  We were very pleased the entire bill was about $8,000, while we’re not thrilled about shelling out $8k the bill could have been much worse (note that we had other work done as well, the head repair itself was about $5k.)  The problem was solved by a rebuilding of the head but Kirk of Freightliner had no details from the shop that actually worked on the head.  The valve guides were bad so I’m assuming all of them got replaced but no word if any of the valves themselves had an issue.

Upon word from Kirk that the coach was ready to be picked up, we made plans to drive the new Passat (it already has over 4,000 miles on it!) back to Phoenix, pick up the coach and then caravan back home.  The scheme was for Jane to drive the coach in the mornings and then the Passat in the afternoons and that plan worked out extremely well.  Driving the coach solo was a bit of an unusual experience since we are almost always both in it on the road but we quickly adapted to being alone and kept in touch via radio talkies.

The caravan heads home – a rest stop in west Texas

We always drive the coach at 65 mph and the Passat gets to go the speed limit but for caravan purposes the Passat had to poke along at 65.  Wow what a difference in MPG that made!  When we were driving the Passat 80 mph (very legal in west Texas), our average mpg was low to mid 30s, on the same highway at 65 mph, our average MPG was over 50!  Holy cow!  The beautiful thing is the Passat’s mileage will continue to improve as the engine gets broken in. We are lovin’ this vehicle

50+ MPG in the Passat!

Speaking about performance, the coach’s big Cummins ISL engine is running better than it ever did when new.  This I immediately noticed when watching the amount of boost the turbocharger was producing, it is making more boost and the boost is staying higher for longer than I have ever seen.  There must have been some sort of issue from early on with the head or exhaust system allowing some of the exhaust gas to bypass the turbo.  The more exhaust gas that goes by the turbo vanes the faster it spins and the more boost (measured in PSI) it produces.  I’m also thinking our fuel economy might improve a tiny bit – we’ll see.  Some might be wondering if we’re going to go back to Cummins and present the situation to them for some possible goodwill reimbursement.  Possibly.

And they shall come two by two….

Bill helping to get the donkeys out of the trailer

Moonpie and the jenny – she doesn’t have a name yet. Suggestions?

We have completed our JJ Ranch “zoo” with the addition of two miniature donkeys, one is an adult jenny (female) and one is a yearling gelding (he used to be a boy.)  John has always wanted donkeys and Jane’s brother Bill had a couple of them that needed to go to a new home so the die was cast to add two more mouths to feed to JJ Ranch.  (Actually they will do fine just grazing and don’t need any food supplement so they will be easy care.) The donkeys are incredibly stubborn (that’s supposedly equated with being smart) and loading them in Bill’s trailer took three of us about 20 minutes and unloading was almost as difficult.  We got the little gelding (Moonpie) out of the trailer and when we were trying to move the jenny out, Moonpie jumped back in.  Great.  We pushed him back out and with continual shoving and pushing the jenny finally gave up and we shoved her out.  Keep in mind these are miniature donkeys (less than 36″ tall at the withers) that we were struggling and fighting with.  Can’t imagine working with a standard size donkey.

The first morning (with the donkeys on the property) I walked Sassy (walkies are the 600′ from the house to the front gate and back), the donkeys noticed Sassy and they both started chasing her at full gallop.  Oh my gosh, I could only stand there and watch the scene unfold.  To my great relief, Sassy was about half a donkey length in the lead and stayed there.  This could have turned ugly since donkeys hate canines.  Sassy must have looked like a fox, they probably hate them as well.  Since that contest of speed, we have taken care to gradually introduce Sassy to the donkeys and they now seem to be used to her and don’t see her as a threat.  We hope.

About that winter thing….

It’s started out as a very nasty one, this past Monday we had the Polar Vortex (love that term – it sounds like an old Irwin Allen disaster movie) visit us here in the Texas Hill Country.  Holy cow we got cold,13.6F and we stayed below freezing for about two days.  Hey you Canadian people up there – keep that mess north of the border, eh?

It’s cold!

So, what’s up next…

You would never guess – we’re headed back to Moab in late April for more fun, fellowship and rock crawling with the Family Motor Coach Assn 4-wheelers.

Stay warm, have fun, and be kind to one another.  Blessings from our house to yours.

We only managed to run the trails in Clayton for half of one day (three days were planned)

I broke the front left axle u-joint at Clayton, OK Here’s the work party.

– while making a small turn around a boulder the left front tire got a little bound up and for the first time ever on our Jeep, I heard the unmistakeable BANG that I’ve heard so many times in the past on other vehicles.  That particular BANG noise is almost always an axle and sure enough, it was our front left axle, in particular the u-joint which exploded.  Thank goodness the axle shaft itself didn’t snap as it can be very difficult to extricate the inner part out of the axle tube.  Spencer and Phillip were great and jumped immediately in to help (actually all I got to do was to drag out my tools) to pull the broken axle from the tube and insert the replacement.  Yes, we had a replacement available!  So after only 30-45 minutes, the Jeep was back on the trail but by then it was lunch time so we made the short drive back to the coach.

At that point I decided it was not a good idea to continue running our Jeep since the

Spencer’s running the trail behind me that first morning. Nicely set up Jeep on 42″ tires.

replacement axle was only original equipment and not high-strength so I was a passenger for the next 2.5 days.  That was an interesting experience and I can now appreciate what Jane has to endure being in the right seat most of the time; my neck was so sore after we were done here it took me several days to recover.  As the driver, I get to hold onto the steering wheel and our driver’s seat has a high backrest with a neck pillow for good support – wow did I miss my seat.  In the meantime Jane was quite content to stay on the coach and do whatever that she wanted to do without me in her hair.

And for another first, I experienced my first flop (rolling over on your side) – since I was a passenger I was a spectator for this interesting event.  Chris, the driver, started to climb this obstacle that required careful tire placement but he got a little off-line and we started to lean a little to the left, then a little more, and then a little more.  Now I’ve done this many, many times (get off-camber) and have a seat-of-the-pants feel for about how much to push the center of gravity envelope and there was that moment when I told myself “here’s where gravity takes control” and sure enough we flopped almost completely horizontal on the left side.

It was a bit strange being held firmly by the seat belt and shoulder belt while at about an 80° angle but I quickly adjusted to the new sensation.  Then the event moved on to the

I’m a passenger when the driver flopped on the left side. Great fun!

recovery phase which required Chris’s winch and that’s when Chris discovered his usually handy winch controller was behind his seat and that he couldn’t reach it, nobody from the outside could reach in since there was a mass of rock blocking that door and initially I couldn’t reach it.  There was no way I was going to try to unbuckle my seat belt since I would have fallen on Chris so I made a few more attempts to stretch out and finally I managed to get a finger and then another finger on the controller line and pull it out from its cave.  After that, recovery went quickly with an experienced crew on the outside setting up the winch line to an appropriate anchor point and Chris quickly pulled us upright with the winch (he can operate the winch from the driver’s position with the winch controller) and he drove out.  That was a way fun experience.

The weather forecast for the day we left Clayton for St George, Utah was rain which usually isn’t a big deal but a complicating factor was that we were set up on grass at the off-road park and were in a low area so we made plans to get out of that place as soon as possible in the morning.  We got up early and had the coach ready to move to a paved area in the nearby town at 7am where we parked and had a quick breakfast.  It rained almost all of that day which made for more careful than usual driving (which gets very tiring.)

After a two day detour at Williams, Arizona to rest up and eat a meal out we continued on to the SW corner of Utah where we arrived at Temple View RV Resort in St George.  For orientation, St George is about 110 miles north of Las Vegas.  We quickly discovered that St George was a very neat, clean and very tidy town probably due in no small part to the overwhelming Mormon presence there – they seem to have a very strong work ethic and hold many of the same values as we do.

We had an interesting time running the trails in the St George area – for the first time we

Little Sahara aka Sand Mountain OHV area – these dunes are very large!

had to drive on very large sand dunes (Sand Mountain Off Highway Vehicle area) and there was for sure a learning curve.  Some of the dunes were very steep with sharp break-overs which required a lot of speed to climb but if you go too fast, you could launch yourself right over the dune top and go flying for 20 feet or more.  Think of a large ocean wave – sort of like a “comma” turned on end with a shallow angle on the approach side of the “wave” and a steep drop-off on the backside of the wave.  If you don’t go fast enough, you don’t make it to the top of the dune, if you go too fast, things get way too exciting on the other side.

I volunteered to lead a hard trail and then like an idiot volunteered to lead one more hard trail, it didn’t take long to realize the folly of this.  After going on one pre-run (we run trails the week before the event starts) on a hard trail I realized these trail are really difficult and that first trail was obstacle after obstacle with no let-up.  It was intense wheeling and made more so because almost nobody had any experience with the trails in the area since this

Not a good position to be in – Mike is on a bad line!

was the very first FMCA 4-Wheeler event here.  After we returned to camp I dis-volunteered (un-volunteered?) to lead that second trail. The next day we ran an easier trail which took the stress level down a few notches and then the following day we did a pre-run of the trail we were going to lead the following week.  That trail was on the list to be run on two different days so the trail leader for the second running was with us for the pre-run.

Even though we had a GPS track of the trail, it wasn’t precise enough to exactly figure out where the trail went in several areas so the girls walked ahead of us guys to scout out the

I’m trail leader on this trail later in the week and had to make this climb!

trail.  This trail (called Plan B for some reason – maybe Plan A didn’t work out) was difficult in places and very technical (requiring an outside spotter and exact tire placement.)  When we led the trail with the group (I limited the trail to 10 vehicles) it was overall a good day, nobody got into trouble but there was one mandatory hard obstacle where most of the group had to be winched over.  As trail leader, I go first and fortunately I got up and over without too much trouble.

Here’s another picture of us doing an optional obstacle on a trail called Milt’s Mile Extended (it was too short for an all-day trail) – this trail was a bunch of fun and we’ll look forward to running it again if we manage to get back to St George.

Me climbing an optional obstacle – this one was fun

Here’s a video of that same obstacle:

Here’s another video of a steep optional climb – this one was fun:

So we had a lot of fun and got to know more of the FMCA 4-Wheelers folks, since this was only our third rally we are still learning faces and names.  Oh, we did have a little Jeep trouble while in St George.  We were lined up to run a trail and I noticed some coolant fluid on the ground under the engine.  After a little more investigation I decided this was a very bad coolant leak and it appeared to be coming from the vicinity of the water pump (which was the only part of the cooling system not replaced), so we pulled out of the line and drove the mile or so the the local 4×4 shop and dropped it off.  Sure enough the problem was the water pump.  Sigh.

After an event like this, it’s always sort of sad to see the party break up – there were probably 80 or 90 RVs at Temple View RV Resort which took up a majority of one section, then there were very few.  We left a couple of days later and headed to Phoenix to have some routine maintenance done on the coach at the Freightliner dealer and there was an oil leak around the coach engine oil pan that I wanted them to look at also.  We just finished breakfast when the service manager called me with some really bad news – the oil leak was caused by blow-by (excessive crankcase pressure) which could be caused by worn cylinder walls, cracked piston ring(s), or something wrong in the head like worn valve guides.  Then more bad news – we had to leave the coach there and repairs were going to take 3-4 weeks and repairs could cost $25,000 if they had to tear the engine completely down.

Wow.

We were a bit stunned to say the least, the engine (Cummins ISL – 8.9 L) only has 89,000 miles on it and we were expecting 250k miles without any kind of significant engine issue.  After we recovered from that initial shock of the situation our energy was directed towards the logistics of getting us, the dog and cat and some essential stuff home to Texas to wait out the repairs.  Since there was no way we were going to drive our special purpose rock-crawler Jeep a thousand miles each way, we looked into renting a car for a one-way.  After calling a couple of rental outfits the price was a big put-off – they wanted $400-700 for a one way rental and the drop-off city was not going to be convenient.  So, we started thinking about the crazy idea of buying a car to drive home.

Actually we were planning on replacing the Jeep Liberty in the next 12-18 months so the idea wasn’t quite as crazy as you might think.  We already had a target vehicle in mind – a VW Jetta Sportwagen diesel.  Since we do so much driving, the Jetta’s outstanding fuel economy (45+ mpg) was a major attractor.  And wouldn’t you know it, there was a VW dealer about a mile away from the Freightliner dealer so we checked out Jettas and while we were there, drove the larger and somewhat more expensive diesel Passat.  After the test drives and thinking the idea over, we decided to see if we couldn’t make a good deal on a new or low mileage Passat.  The larger size of the Passat was a primary factor in choosing that model.

Always hating dealing with car dealers, this buying experience was no different – these guys are sharks and are always looking at how to shake you down for a few more bucks.  After enduring the ridiculous back and forth among us, the salesman, sales manager, and the general manager, we had a deal or so I thought, they tried to slip a $449 “Document Fee” past us.  “But everybody pays this.” Sorry bub – I’m not everybody, I did manage to cut that back by $200. Then the financial closer guy wanted to sell us an extended warranty.  Nope.  Not a chance – I had to cut him off from his canned speech.  So Jane had a new car and we had our own vehicle to drive home.  Hope I don’t have to go through that crap again for several more years.

Jane’s new Passat TDI SEL(diesel)

We were home maybe two weeks when I called the Freightliner service manager and got a bit of good news, they pulled the head from the engine and the cylinder walls look good (not a broken piston ring) so the problem is in the head somewhere – probably the valve guides are worn (or possibly a bad valve).  They sent the head out for an overhaul and it was supposed to be delivered yesterday.  So hopefully the repairs will be nowhere near the $25k mark.

As a final note, we have had some very cold weather here in the Texas Hill Country – we

Our five seconds of fame – we have a picture on TV of our freezing rain.  This is the weather guy using a visual aid

have been below freezing for several days and have had freezing rain, ice pellets and a few snow flurries this morning.  As I type this, the sun has shown itself for the first time in six days.  I took a picture of some frozen rain and emailed it to a local TV station in San Antonio we watch a lot and to our complete surprise, the picture was shown on the five o’clock news three or four days ago.  We’re famous for about five seconds!

To all of our dear readers, have a blessed Thanksgiving!  We all have much to be thankful for and please always think of others:

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in… Matthew 25:35

John and Sassy in the San Juan mountains

We last left off with us in Montrose, Colorado at our favorite campground (Centennial RV Park) and as usual, had a great time with our friends in the Western Slope 4-Wheelers club running around the San Juan mountains at 10-13,000 feet of elevation.  This year we didn’t spend quite as much time there as usual (about five weeks) because we had some other activities planned – we

Sassy at 12,000 feet in the San Juan Mountains

The Columbine – state flower of Colorado

were going to dry camp (no water/electric/sewer) in Leadville, Colorado at the All-for-Fun off-road event for a week (first time with the 290 watts of solar power I installed last summer and a residential-type of fridge), then we went to Chama, New Mexico to ride the Cumbres & Toltec steam train (we still like the Durango and Silverton train better), and then back home. The reason for coming home so early was due to our dear old friends

Just parked in Leadville, Colorado for the All-4-Fun off-road event.

Alpine flowers

(Les & Karen) inviting us to spend a week with them on the beach at their time share in Cocoa Beach, Florida.

Remember earlier in the year when the house air conditioner needed to be replaced?  Continuing on in that same vein the washer/dryer combo unit in the coach decided to stop drying so Jane basically was left with a washing machine.  Not a huge deal because almost all campgrounds have a few washers and dryers available, but the Splendide needed to be repaired ($$.)

Then a couple of days before we arrived home, the GE Advantium microwave/convection oven decided to not work ($$$$.)  This was a big deal since Jane had some frozen meals that really needed an oven to properly cook and all we had working was a cooktop.  The washing machine and Advantium oven are eight years old and their failing while a disappointment is not totally unexpected (can’t believe we’ve been running around North America for eight years!)

The Splendide problem was the main circuit board ($325 + shipping) and the Advantium problem was not determined and whatever the cause was, most likely was not worth repairing (an eight year-old appliance that’s been bouncing on the road for 87,000 miles.)  So.. hello new Advantium (sigh, $1,000.)  The new Advantium was installed by John and helpers a couple of hours ago.

Jumping around a little bit with the narrative, we had a great time in Cocoa Beach with our buds but we forgot what 100% humidity feels like.  Wow – it’s like having a hot and damp towel wrapped around your entire body when you aren’t in air conditioning.  After fun and frivolity (and several way fun cocktail hours and dinners out) we pointed ourselves to Ft Myers to visit with some other very dear friends (going back to the 1980s), Bob and Judy.  Bob had heart bypass surgery a few months ago (with a complication) but he is doing well – it was great to see them again.  Then we headed to Naples to visit with our physician nephew Erik and his physician wife Karen and their three small boys; they are escapees from NY state and we are delighted to see them relocated south.  They are doing great and loving their new location.

Our new rhea birds

Ranch stuff – the Rhea birds were delivered a couple of weeks ago and they are settled in and doing very well.  We discovered that the birds leave a rather large pile of green poop which our newly bathed Sassy the corgi discovered and rolled around in a few days ago.  Sassy is just like a two year old human baby – turn your back on them for ten seconds and look-out, chances are she’s doing something against house rules.  So Sassy was quite the smelly mess with a bit of her covered in green poop –  we gave her another bath on the deck.  Never a dull moment.

Today  our trapper delivered a nice 13″ long horned blackbuck antelope to be the new

Our new breeder blackbuck antelope

breeder male.  We wanted genetic diversity to improve the health and bloodline of the herd so this was a huge moment for us.  We haven’t seen the herd in a few hours but we’re hoping the new big man on campus (BMOC) will settle nicely into his new role as patriarch of our herd of 25 or so does and spike bucks.

While driving the Jeep Rubicon around Colorado on the highways this summer, we decided that something had to happen as far as more power.  The Rubicon sometimes can just barely make the speed limit with the engine screaming along at 4,000+ RPMs – it’s frustrating for us as well as the poor folks following behind us.  The solution was more power was needed – this could either be:

The supercharger is almost installed

a complete engine/drivetrain change out for a V-8 Hemi (mega bucks) or getting more power out of the current engine (mini-bucks relatively speaking.)  So, after doing some research and talking to owners of supercharged Jeeps similar to ours, we decided to supercharge the Jeep’s straight-six engine.

Like always, John did all of the work and the results are spectacular – the wheel horse power went from about 100 to 211 HP. Wow.  Here’s some videos of the unboxing of the supercharger kit, a dynamometer run before and after supercharging and a road test.

Next on the agenda is to head to Clayton, OK mid-October  for a wheeling event and then on to St. George, UT for – wait for it – more off-roading

Looking south from the coach to the San Juan Mountains

As I look our our large salon window I can see the peaks of the beautiful snow-capped San Juan mountains, always a gorgeous sight to behold.  We will be here for about five more weeks so we will get our fill of Jeeping around the mountains with our club, the Western Slope 4-wheelers.  (There are several wildfires in Colorado but fortunately none near us.)

We have been blessed with rain at the little ranch this year – not a lot but it is always

Young buck going to auction

coming down at the right time to keep the grasses and flowers growing – prayers are answered!  Assuming we continue to regularly get a little rain, our feed bill should be way down this year.  Speaking of feed, we have had a good year (so far) with the blackbuck antelope.  We sold several at auction, and are in the process of having the remaining bucks darted and sold off with the idea of bringing in a new breeder buck for genetic diversity.  We did have a very, very nice buck die for no obvious reason this spring, it was such a sad

This is the beautiful male that died for no obvious reason

event to see one of the nicest males in the herd die – he needed to be on another ranch and we could have used the money to offset prior years’ feed bill.  On a positive note, all of the three or four babies born this year are doing well unlike the last couple of years.

Since we are trying to be good stewards of our ranch, we have been active in an effort to rid the place of prickly pear cactus; after a three year spray program (Surmount) we have the cactus about 98% controlled (compared to it covering maybe 50% of the property at purchase!)  Now it’s time to aggressively tackle our thistle

Thistle flower

population, we have been actively fighting them for years with some progress but if you leave a few thistles, they will produce thousands and thousands of seeds, so it seems like a losing battle.  After a chat with our animal trapper and lamenting about the thistle problem, he said he has Rhea birds (like an Emu or Ostrich) that eat the thistle heads and eventually the thistles completely disappear since they can’t produce seeds.

Lesser Rhea

Sensing an opportunity for natural control instead of herbicides, we ordered two Rhea birds from the trapper to be delivered as soon as possible so we will be adding more exotic critters to the place.  John wants a couple of donkeys so don’t be surprised if we make that announcement one of these days.

On a very tragic note, we found out that one person of the two man trapper team we use was recently killed apparently in a domestic violence event with his wife just a few days after we received our proceeds from the antelope sale.  The sheriff found the man’s wife with a stab wound in the leg and he was dead of a gunshot wound.  Story goes that there was a long history of marital strife in that family but it’s profoundly sad to see that sort of violent conclusion to a marriage.  (The picture with the two guys and the young male on the ground was not the fellow that was killed.)

After we leave the Montrose area we are headed to Leadville, Colorado for the annual All-4-Fun off-road event and then we haven’t figured out where to go next.  We might wander up to the Yellowstone area, but no definite plans yet.  We’re very blessed to be here and never forget to give thanks .

The reason is that Northern Tools rejected (actually didn’t even have the courtesy to respond) my less than favorable review of their sprayer I just purchased for the ranch, so problem solved.  I’ll simply publish my own review.  Since Northern Tool didn’t like my review, you have to wonder how many other unfavorable, honest reviews also went on the chopping block.  I am now very suspect of their preponderance of favorable product reviews.

Bottom line: I would not recommend this product to a friend unless improvements are made.

On to the review..

Even with our diminutive ranch (by Texas standards) there are lots of weeds and undesirable flora to control and it has turned out to be way too much acreage for spot spraying so hence the need for a larger sprayer that’s tractor mounted.  Not wanting to spend $1,200-1,500 on a larger PTO driven boom sprayer, this product caught my eye at the Northern Tool website.  It seemed to be just what I needed and at a fairly decent price (although it has a 12 volt pump and not a PTO driven pump which means less output), so order placed and sprayer delivered by truck freight a few days later.

Assembly went quickly, you just have to add the legs, a few miscellaneous parts, the

Way too short power cord

hand-held spot sprayer and you’re ready for business. It became very obvious almost immediately that the included 12V cord (on-off switch and alligator clips to clip to the battery terminals) was way too short to use with a real tractor.  The battery in my Kubota is all the way forward so the cord was about six feet (yes, six) feet too short.  Apparently the product brain trust at Northern Tool thought the 12V cord that worked for their ATV and lawn tractor sprayers would work for this product.  Uh, fellows, did anybody actually think this through?  It doesn’t work for a real tractor.  So I had to add about six feet of 14 gauge wire before I could make the product operational.

I mounted it to the Kubota’s 3-point hitch, added a few gallons of water and tested it for function and leaks.  It seemed to work fine and didn’t have any leaks so the next morning it was time to spray Grazon PD on our thistle and other undesirables.

A side note when you’re figuring out your application rate and driving speed to get the right amount of herbicide applied: the little 2.2 GPM pump will only produce about 35 PSI of pressure so the only line in the application rate chart that’s used is 35 PSI.  The broadcast spray nozzle has to be 36″ off the ground for the full spray width and for the chart to be valid.

After I got everything figured out, I started spraying.  Well, almost started spraying.  I immediately found a leaky fitting that I could not completely stop from leaking.  That’s just great, my expensive chemicals leaking on the ground and no easy way to off-load the 30 gallons of product so I could leak-chase. I decided I had to live with the leak and started spraying.

While spraying I discovered a design flaw (first of several.)  The pressure gauge is mounted way too low for it to be easily seen from the operator’s seat.  It’s important to

The difficult to see pressure gauge

keep an eye on the gauge to be certain you’re at the right pressure and that the spray nozzle hasn’t packed up, so I was constantly craning my head and twisting my body to get an occasional glance at the gauge.  When I did manage to see the gauge, I discovered the pump was cycling and off – it should have been operating continuously at 35 PSI.  Great – what now.  After removing various fittings (while losing more chemicals) I traced the problem to the broadcast spray nozzle filter screen insert – it was almost completely blocking the product flow.  Why I have no idea, there was zero detritus caught in the filter.  Solution, remove the filter and spray.  Then things started to finally go my way .

Ye Olde Missing Drain Bung

After spraying my 30 gallons of Grazon, it was time to clean up the sprayer.  At that point, I discovered serious design flaw #2.  Northern Tool was too cheap to install a one dollar drain bung in the tank!  There is no drain bung.  What?! The product designer/planners must not have ever used a large sprayer before, I suppose they think you can clean out and drain a 55 gallon tank by crawling under the sprayer and unscrewing a little 1/2″ hose fitting.  To put it mildly, I was astounded at this oversight.

While I’m ripping into the product, there is another area for improvement.  As they have it

Where they expect you to drain the tank

plumbed, the spot sprayer (the hand held wand) is always active, i.e., there is no three-way valve to throw to select either broadcast spray or hand-held wand.  I discovered this when I saw one of the hose clamps on the spray wand leaking.  This was an easy fix fortunately.  On the positive side, I really liked the spray wand although it needs to be a foot or two longer.

Where to from here, or after a complete re-work, turning this Two Star sprayer into a Five Star sprayer….

I’m going to completely re-plumb the sprayer with 3/4″ hose, change the little 2.2 GPM pump for a 5.5 GPM (I already have the pump), add a three-way valve to either select  broadcast spray or the spray wand, replace the spray wand with a better model and replace the short PVC hose on the wand with a 25′ rubber version.  I’ll weld on a bracket for the pressure gauge (I’ll look for a larger diameter gauge while I’m at it) to bring it up to operator eye-level.  If I get industrious, I might also make a couple of spray booms for it.  The big issue with a single broadcast spray nozzle is chemical drift if there’s much wind blowing – the nozzle is 36″ off the ground which is actually quite a bit.  Boom sprayers are much less sensitive to this problem because the nozzles aren’t nearly as far from the ground.

Since we’re (okay, John is) turning into off-road fanatics, it just seemed right to participate in the Family Motor Coach Assn (FMCA) 4-Wheeler’s

At the Golden Vally FMCA 4-wheeler rally, I pulled out the left-rear shock from its mount

Thanksgiving event in Golden Vally, Arizona (near Kingman).  We joined the club several months previously but our schedules didn’t mesh until this event.  So we made another trip out West (we love the open spaces) and had to stop by Las Cruces, New Mexico to see our dear friends, the Topleys and John made his usual shopping foray at Harbor Freight tools.

We had a great time as usual in Las Cruces and then headed to the NW corner of Arizona

We thought this was a very cool picture that Jane captured at the FMCA 4-Wheeler’s Thanksgiving rally

and had a great time with all of the old 4-wheel codgers like us <grin>, the rally and trails were very well organized, managed and we had a great time.  I was impressed at how much planning effort went into this production, this is what happens when you have a bunch of talented people with a lot of spare time on their hands

Since we pulled the left-rear shock absorber from its upper mount at this event, it was time to completely redo the rear axle shock mounting system and make certain that couldn’t happen again.  Since John

A rolled Jeep at the FMCA 4-Wheelers 2012 Thanksgiving rally @ Golden Vally, AZ.  Everybody was okay

does 99% of the work on the Rubicon, it was necessary to buy a plasma torch to cut off the old parts.  Darn, another tool taking up space   This work was quite involved since John fabricated new shock mounting brackets to be welded on the axle and relocated the upper coil spring mounting perch (via a kit.)

Then winter happened.

Fortunately it was a mild winter and all of our blackbuck antelope babies survived (four or five of them), we did have some animals netted and sold last fall but the herd is still at about 23 or so animals, plenty for our acreage.

Spotted at the Chili Challenge – a buggy on 54″ tires lined up for one of the extreme trails. What an amazing rig

Then we did two more Jeep events, the Chili Challenge (Las Cruces, NM) and the Texas Spur Jeep Jamboree for the third year in a row.

On a more domestic note, our house AC/heat pump decided to croak – it was diagnosed as a bad compressor.  A bum compressor isn’t necessary a hugely expensive repair ($1,000 which is a lot if you don’t have the money!) but the government has complicated things significantly with the elimination of first R-12 Freon, and then R-22 Freon which is what all household AC units used until two or three years ago.

The refrigerant now is the “earth friendly” (right) R-410a for home units.  The dirty little environmental secret that you won’t hear discussed is the fact that R-410a is not as efficient as R-22 and has to operate at far higher pressures (like twice as much) as good old R-22 and “however, it has a high global warming potential (1725 times the effect of carbon dioxide), similar to that of R-22.”  So, we’re using more energy to produce as many BTUs of cooling or heat but we’re saving the ozone while producing just much carbon dioxide.  Huh?  Time to send the environmental wackos and junk ‘scientists’ to a place where everything is.. Happy.  Yes, Happy Land where we’re saving everything from .. everything.   Ah, that feels so good..

Okay, done with that rant.

Back to the AC problem.  After a lot of discussion with our AC guy, we decided it was more

Rusty & leaking AC evaporator (in the air handler)

practical to replace the entire system with a high SEER unit – this meant a totally new outside unit and a completely new inside unit (the air handler and evaporator.)  It was an expensive operation and it took three guys about 9 hours to make the change but we now have an “earth friendly” AC system (I’m so overwhelmed.)

The new AC system is working great (as we expected) so the new system should last many, many years (finger’s crossed.)

John got interested in Amateur Radio (WB5THT is his call sign) again after being inactive for many years so he’s back on the air.  Since everything was in the “I’m not going to work” mode, his old radios that were stored away for many years didn’t work of course, so new radios were ordered and he’s back on the air in the digital modes (like Teletype) and has communicated all over the world with a simple antenna, radio and PC.

As this update is penned (with a keyboard <grin>) we are in Balmorhea, TX at a cheapo campground with overflowing sewer hookups – never a dull moment when you’re on the road.  There aren’t a lot of choices out here unfortunately.

Thank you dear reader for following along with us as we travel, ranch, do stuff to and with the Jeep, and spend money   As always, may God Bless.  -Jane and John-