Things I fixed in M-F…

I’ve had my fill of just sitting on my a/ss being retired and all, so when I first arrived at the RV park in Milton Freewater where I’ve stayed the last 5 months, I let the parks handyman know what my skills were and that I’d be happy to help fix things that might need fixing. Eventually he tried me out, and pretty soon I was working on several things for him and the park.

Over the 5 months I was there, I ended up fixing these items:

1. A contractors boom box, (battery was bad);
2. Repaired a dryer (bad idler pulley);
3. Repaired a coin operated washing machine (bad water valve);
4. Found a bad circuit breaker supplying a range;
5. Repaired a washing machine (bad brain board);
6. Helped the handyman’s helper find a bad plug on his RV’s shore power supply;
7. Repaired the dryer again (broken belt this time);
8. Repaired the dryer again (bad thermal fuse this time).
9. Replaced bad LED strips to restore operation of a 47″ Vizio TV. Owner got fired and never returned to pay and pick it up so I now have it sitting on my dash and use it instead of my tiny 35″.

So I had many fun things to work on. And the money I paid for parts was repaid by either cash in some cases or being allowed to stay a week past my leave date without charge. Only worth $125 in my estimation, not nearly enough to cover the labor if they’d paid someone to do that work I’ve listed above. The dryer broke 3 times and I’m hoping the 3rd time’s the charm and that it won’t happen again for many years. Damn thing. These newer laundry appliances (Amana’s in this case) are really delicate. I even spotted a weak point in the washer the handyman needs to watch carefully and that I might need to fix when I go back there in the spring.

One thing I got out of all this is that the handyman is so happy about all the work that he’ll make sure I get my spot back when I come back up there in April. The monthly at his park is $375/month in an area where it’s typically $600-$650 at other parks so I’m pleased I’ll get that prime spot in the park. Cost me less then $80 for those parts that weren’t reimbursed. My labor was only partially paid for with the free spot for a week but, [shrug], I did enjoy the work. Exercising the brain and all.

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So what was happening was that I was near leaving for points south in order to miss the cold miserable weather there in the Walla Walla valley but one day, I started to have pain and difficulty taking a leak. Not good timing. There is a large VA clinic nearby, and there’s a hospital that’s a VA partner [I thought…turns out it’s not part of the VA system] plus my family lives in the area. My daughter, son, sister, and BIL are all nearby. In Pahrump, my current VA home base, I have no such support system. I do like the ‘looks’ of the VA clinic in Pahrump and the VA has a partner arrangement at a newer, large Urgent Care Clinic here in town that’s ‘almost’ a hospital. But for most medical work in this area, I have to drive 55 miles or so to Las Vegas. Nice medical services there for Vets. Oh, and a huge Vets hospital there. But, no family, no friends here. Just me and my cat. Some very helpful people in the park to lean on if necessary though.

Eventually, I ended up in Walla Walla Providence hospital’s ER and had a catheter inserted due to a swollen prostate squeezing off the urethra. They have a separate Urology Clinic and I was lucky to get in to see a great urologist after 6 days with the catheter in, originally, I’d gotten an appointment for Feb. 15th and here it was near Thanksgiving. And the newer appointment date was just 2 days before I was supposed to leave the RV park. My rent would be due but I didn’t want to stay, because of the cold. But I didn’t want to drive down to Pahrump with a catheter either. Luckily, the Dr. decided it would be okay to remove the catheter there in his office so I had that done. And I made a future appointment for prostate laser surgery on April 26th, 2021 after discussing my options. He wanted me to stay in town a few days until they could be relatively sure the prostate wouldn’t choke up again and I stayed for a week beyond my departure date at the RV park. That’s where helping fix things around the park came into play and there was no effort by the park staff to get me to pay or leave.

And I had to travel up Deadman’s Pass above Pendleton. If you don’t know it, it’s a very steep pass that often gets early snows. And they often salt the road because it’s so dangerous. But the day I chose to leave, it was going to get up to 50 F! Yea! Here’s a link to Trip Check web site that some state’s DMV’s sign on for. They have hundreds of webcams pointed towards roads so they are very handy for travelers in dicey weather conditions. I spent an hour on it just before departure checking the passes on my route. Not all states sign up for the system, I’m happy Oregon did.

So here is the travel blog about my December trip from M-F Oregon to Pahrump, NV. As you can see, it was a nice sunny day on Dec. 7th early AM. My BIL, Gary, came over and helped me break camp.

No snow, plenty of sunshine, but cold. In the 30’s.

One of the disappointing things about this trip was that I’d added ‘stop leak’ to the radiator because I developed a heater core leak months and months ago. If you remember my past blog report about it, you might recall that replacing the heater core is really a difficult job in one of these Winnebago RVs so I’d tried the stop leak back in June. On this travel day, I’d slowwwwly increased the heat as I drove trying not to dislodge the plug that had developed after I’d added the stop leak months ago. So remember that…meanwhile, here’s some shots of the beautiful valley as I’m climbing Deadman’s Pass…these were taken from the Overlook along the freeway.

And above in that last shot is a look down the pass toward Pendleton. Looking at that valley, you can see why a few immigrants decided to stay here or turn north and head for the Walla Walla valley instead of continuing on with the arduous trip along the Columbia to the Willamette valley. But the promise of there being lots of help for settlers there must have been overpowering for most in covered wagons. There was a fort at Vancouver, Washington after all. Hundreds died trying to float on rafts down the Columbia because of all the massive rapids. The huge Indian meeting place at The Dalles was for a few short years a welcoming place until the immigration trickle became a flood, then they weren’t so welcoming to all those ‘ugly Americans’. And they stopped helping with building or stabilizing rafts unless paid handsomely. Some whites strongly objected to them asking for anything so friction was rampant. Anyway, enough of the history lesson, on with the trip.

As you can see, there was snow up there, but the warm day had kept the roads clear and dry. And the road crews hadn’t bothered sprinkling any salt.

After I got up that pass, and traveled on I-82 for some 100 miles, I started smelling antifreeze in the cab. Dammit. My heater core leak is back. Eventually it was strong enough that I stopped, clamped the heater core supply hose with a pair of vise grips, topped off the surge tank with antifreeze, and continued on without heat. Even without heat, I decided I could make it all the way to Winnemucca by driving 8 hours. In order to take the edge off the cold inside the RV, I got the generator running (no mean feat as it was so cold…took many attempts to get it started) and set up three of the small floor heaters I have. The generator and the heaters took the edge off the cold, but I still wore a winter coat and had another draped over my legs to stay halfway warm. Got to Winnemucca at 5:20 pm, well after sundown. It was 16 F. Brrrr! I paid the outrageous $41.44 they were asking simply because it was so cold and I needed a 50 amp pull though site so I didn’t need to unhook. Another nearby park only asked $25/night for 50 amp sites but they were all back in…at least as far as I could tell in the dark.

Next morning, I only had a 6 hour drive to get to Pahrump so I could take it easy. It was only 11 F as I left Winnemucca at 9 AM and it stayed cold until around 11:30 AM when it reached 50 F. I was still using the generator and floor heaters though.

And here’s some random town I passed through on this route:

Milton Freewater to Pahrump…

And then it quickly changed back to farmland. During the 2nd day of travel, there’s a very steep road you have to travel and it takes you through Austin, Nevada. The town looks very interesting. Has 3 older RV parks. I’m going to stay there for a week eventually. It looks that interesting and historical. This trip I was stopped by this pretty road worker for 15 minutes.

After Austin, the road slips back into valleys and it stays warm and dry. High speed travel is possible but there’s not much in the way of side aprons on the roads so you have to pay attention.

By the time I got to Beatty, I’d removed my coat and was often shutting the generator off for a few minutes at a time. And just outside Pahrump, it got up to 7o F! Yea! By then the generator was off for good. Over the trip, I ran the generator for 14 hours. That surprises me, didn’t seem to be on that long. The warmer temps in Pahrump are why I’m here in this town. Just 11 F in Winnemucca, but the high 60’s to low 70’s here, happy I don’t live there. Brrr!

I am now in Pahrump at the Preferred RV Resort. One of my readers is here and hopefully, we’ll be able to get together over a cold one. Though I’m just drinking non-alcoholic these days after the hospital visit.

Bonus!

So here’s a couple shots of the interest my cat now shows the TV when I have the giant 47″ TV set up on the dash. I watch nature shows sometimes and she really pays attention on occasion. Especially when the show is about big cats. Here she is trying to get up and personal with one…

Really funny watching her pawing at the screen or trying to find where the cats disappear to when the cat on the screen seemingly walks behind the TV.

Thanks for reading!