Here’s the dead mouse pic I promised…poor little bastard. Sniff.
I’m here at the Baldwin Estate in So. Lake Tahoe as a volunteer and since I’ve got keys and everything, I thought I’d throw some pics of the place your way.
This is the volunteers computer room where I spend a lot of my time, the public doesn’t come in here. It use to be a storage room or the maids room, no one knows anymore:
Next door is the laundry & electrical room. I was very impressed with the work done by a previous volunteer…he hid modern electrical wiring, up to code, behind the original electrical panels. The first pic shows the old stuff, the second the new behind the old:
Here’s a couple pics of the laundry room stuff, note the old style heater:
Then you move from the electrical & laundry room into the cook stove & reefer room:
This reefer is original from the early ’20’s and I just had it fixed yesterday, working fine now, the last time it was worked on was 5 years ago, before that, anyone’s guess. The crew used it to store their lunches.
And then into the serving pantry:
I missed getting a shot of the dining room…forgot, sorry. I would call it, cozy.
And finally, here is the living room, the grand room with the 25 foot ceilings and the chandeliers and stuff:
Then some more pics from the living room. The grand door is huge and opens up onto a view of the beach…note that the trees were much smaller when folks lived here:
Here’s the porch:
Here’s a good view of the ornate door, it’s huge and heavy (at least in my expirience):
If you spin around in the living room and face West, you’d be looking out at this:
And the other side of the courtyard, what’s interesting is that this place was made for those lazy afternoons and evenings when people would sit around this courtyard and just talk about the events of the day, or about Chaucer, Shelly, Fitzgerald or Poe, and usually after a game of tennis or a swim. Ya see, they didn’t have television…
This part of the museum is now a retrospective of the lives of the Washoe of the area. They were totally robbed of their ancestral lands (evidence of the tribe being here in Tahoe for 12,000 years) and after years of pleading, begging and anger, they were finally awarded $2.41 per acre for the lands taken from them. This small section of the museum tells their story. What was initially 5000 people shrank to 500 in just a few years after the white man came to the area.
There’s at least 4 or 5 other rooms I’m not showing here. And there are more rooms upstairs. What a life for these people. But, ya know, they’re all dead. All that money didn’t stop that.
Two or three days ago, I got home from volunteer work at 4:30 or so and was lounging around here in the RV when I happened to glance out the north facing windows to see a brown bear wandering across the blacktop right (within 15 feet) in front of my RV. I had the front curtains closed and it was a chore to quickly open them, grab my camera, wait for it to boot and finally get a picture. By that time the beast was all the way across blacktop area and nosing around the dumpster. But I did finally get two pics before it ambled off (it had seen me after I opened the curtains). Later I was able to wrestle it to the ground and get a three count. Enjoy the wildlife!
I’ve been here a work week so far (Monday thru Thursday) and have accomplished a little. For instance, the battery operated golf carts we use extensively during the season just sit for 6 months of the year in cold, wet conditions. My first project was to get the ‘Gem’ cart up and running. This is the newest cart here and was donated by the manufacturer. It’s cool and goes like hell when it’s working.
Here’s what it looks like:
It has six 12V batteries and all of them were dead except for one. The on-board charger wouldn’t charge the rest up because they were too low so it just constantly beeped plaintively. It would require too much current to charge the dead batteries so I had to use my own 12V charger and charge 5 of the batteries up enough that the on-board charger could take over. It took nearly 2 gallons of distilled water to top off the batteries. After charging for several hours, everything is back to normal and the Gem is working fine. I’m a little worried that the batteries won’t last very long but I’ll write up a ‘storage’ procedure before I leave. Maybe that will help them survive through next year.
Next I had to work on this little cart. It had charged up OK and worked fine for most of a day and then just stopped. Dead. The workers pushed it to the shop and when I opened it up I found a broken battery cable terminal, caused by extensive corrosion. After replacing the terminal and cleaning things up, it’s nearly as good as new…
Next, I worked on this one:
It had the same problem as the last cart…it was working fine but then just died. Note that in all these carts, the batteries and electromechanical devices are mainly under the seat. This cart was a little different in that it’s one of the oldest, which means that the parts are difficult to replace if bad. I rooted around in the guts of the thing and found 3 terminals that were so corroded that they had broken off after surviving the winter. After replacing all those, it seemed to work fine for a few minutes. Then it just dies. I pushed it back to the shop and started debugging. Several hours later, and after drawing my own schematic, I decided that a major part, the ‘Forward-Neutral-Reverse’ switch is bad. It’s huge as it switches all the motor current if you are trying to change direction. It’s also old, cracked, and probably impossible to find a new one. So this weekend I’ll be on-line trying to find a replacement switch or something I can use to replace it…maybe relays or something. I’ll keep you posted.
Update: I was able to take the big F-N-R switch apart, re-thread a stud, replace some older hardware, clean and brighten the contacts enough that it’s working fine now.
Meanwhile, I took these shots of the Baldwin Museum and the classic car I’ll be working on next week…
The masters house:
The antique…needs new tires all around…I’ll work on that next week or so:
The Gates…
Last year in May, I was assigned to rebuild two 6 foot wide gates. It was fun trying to come up with a way to build something that would last for a long time. I was told that the gates had been a source of constant problems since the weather and width of the gates conspired to cause them to droop and come apart to easily. I was told that they had been replaced several times and the last set had only been up for 3-4 years and was already falling apart.
With that information in mind, I tried to come up with a design which would last a little longer. The fence posts themselves had been replaced just the year before (’04) and the gates repaired and stiffened. The posts were OK, but the gates sucked and were falling apart again. I didn’t want to reset the posts so I just straightened them a little. They were still out of alignment a little but not so bad that I couldn’t work with them.
This is what the gates looked like in May of ’05:
Note that there are several patches holding the things up and the 2 X 4 on the left is breaking apart:
My camera failed last year before I was able to get pictures of the finished gates so I thought I’d put some on the blog that I took last week (May ’06):
Here’s a closer shot of one of the gates. I used a major triangle to support the horizontal piece along the top of the fence, used a 4″ X 4″ for the stile (wood on the gate that the hinges attach to), 2″ X 6″ for the runner and diagonal member and 2″ X 4″ studs for the final pieces. I tried to use as much cedar as possible (resists water and bugs) and obtained all the wood from the scrap pile so the wood was aged. The joints are a mixture of lap and compound lap. I used 2-part epoxy on all joints to delay rot. I angled the runner along the bottom so rain water would weep off. It was a lot of fun building them and this year I find that they are still very strong and doing well. None of the joints have separated at all. In fact the free ends of the gates are just as high off the ground this year as they were when I finished them last year. I used two major triangles and a minor compound form to stiffen and strengthen the gates while at the same time making the gates weigh less then if I had used 2″ X 4″ studs and tried to brace things well. The old gates used 2 X 4’s throughout.
And the other side, the wow on the left side is an optical illusion:
We hung around South Lake Tahoe for the four days TJ was around. Went to a couple casinos, visited some local bars, and went to an Improv comedy club at Harrah’s. Funny, but not wet your pants funny.
Sunday morning we picked up the rental car and drove around until time to go to the Sacramento airport. The trip is 3 hours round trip.
These shots are from the small park just above Cave Rock on the East side of the lake:
Here’s a few shots of Fallen Leaf Lake on the West side of Lake Tahoe…about two miles west and 300-400 feet above where I work actually:
On the way back, I just missed an accident on the 2 lane road in the mountains. Seems an SUV slowed down too quickly to make a turn and got hammered from the back. The car that hit the SUV tumbled down a 25 foot embankment missing several large trees, landing upside down. I was about 4 cars behind the whole thing. There were plenty of people down there already and since I have not had first aid training for years, I didn’t stop. News the next night said no one was hurt. Lucky for them.
Wednesday the 10th of May, I left my brothers house and headed for Lake Tahoe. First I took some pixs of his new baby…a Toyota Prius hybrid. I got to drive it for 2 days and it’s a blast. I was getting 37.6 MPG. There is a LCD color display that shows you the milage you’re getting or you can switch it to a GPS map. This little engine keeps the battery charged.
Monday morning I left for Sacramento and on to Tahoe, here’s a shot of the desert near Rosamond as I turned onto highway 99:
And further North on 99. Those are wind power generators up there on the hill:
I picked up TJ at the Sacramento airport. She wanted to come up to Tahoe for a few days. Her suitcase is huge. Takes up half the space in the RV:
About half the way up to Tahoe you start following ‘The American River’. Very cool:
We stopped near a little park. The temp was near 75F:
Then around 10 miles up the road we ran into this:
Here’s a shot of TJ’s butt:
TJ strikes a pose (not my doing, I didn’t put her up to it):
Our first view of the lake from US50:
There’s still a bunch of snow, we’re at around 5500 feet here:
I thought this pond was pretty neat:
An hour later and here we are:
After driving around Mexico, I felt it was time to replace the shocks since I got bounced and banged around so much down there. I was having control issues as well. The roads down there aren’t the best with lots of potholes and steep edges. I also found myself on gravel roads with ruts or narrow roads with huge potholes and no way to drive around them. And riding on them was no treat. Got my teeth rattled many times.
I checked the repair records and couldn’t find any record that the original owner had ever replaced the shocks, and I had over 122,000 miles on the rig. Most owners say that stock shocks are good for maybe 20,000 miles on a RV.
So I did a search on RV.net and read the stories by others on the net about the best shocks and prices. I settled on Bilstein’s since I found so many stories about how good they were. They also have a lifetime warranty and were about the same price as the other brands.
I ordered a set from eshocks.com for $299, including shipping. The new shocks were smaller diameter then the shocks I was replacing and the fronts are longer then the rears.
$299 worth of RV shocks…with a lifetime warranty.
I’m at my brother’s house and he has a compressor and impact tools so we decided to do the work out on the street. The street is very steep so I chocked the rig up good and raised and blocked the front.
The weather shortly before we went to work…then the sun came out and it got hot.
After soaking with CR-2-26 spray lube, the impact wrench made short work of removing the nuts. But I don’t think it would have been a problem with a breaker bar and a ratchet. Since the old shocks were bad, there was no problem removing them since they were collapsed. One thing I noticed on the old shocks was that the neoprene was still soft and pliable. Good sign that the other rubber products on the chassis would still be reasonably good.
Installing the new shocks was a chore since they are under pressure (350lbs I believe) we had to use a flat pry bar to get them compressed enough to get them on the mounting shafts. If I’d had the rig on a flat instead of a steep hill, that probably wouldn’t have been a problem since I could have jacked up the rig far enough that the extended shocks would have slipped right on.
Top mounting of drivers side front shock:
Bottom mounting of same:
There would have been plenty of room if we had removed the wheel but we felt we could get it done without doing that. We found that the flat washers wouldn’t fit back into the brackets with the new shocks installed, so we installed them just under the nut instead of between the ‘U’ bracket and the concave washers, which fit up next to the rubber mounting bushing of the shock. In a thousand or so miles, I’ll crawl under there and check to make sure the shock isn’t moving back and forth too much. If there is movement, I’ll just reinstall the washers.
After we finished the fronts, we moved to the rears. No big deal back there except the transfer case is kind of in the way so we had to use long extensions and a wobbler to get on the nuts. On the passenger side, the bundle of wire and hose was right up onto the outer case of the old shock so we had to remove clamp bolts in order to move that bundle out of the way. Since the new shocks have less diameter, there won’t be anymore rubbing.
Rear shock:
Once all the new shocks were installed, we did a road trip. I’m always surprised when I read or hear other people talk about what a huge difference new shocks make but I’ve never seen or felt much of a difference all those other times I’ve changed bad shocks. And since my expectations are low I’m never disappointed. This time was no exception. I guess I’d need a calibrated butt. I’d say that maybe there was a slight reduction of porpoising on an older freeway here in Southern California. And perhaps it was more stable in the wind when being passed by big semis. Driving over trenches or bad patches might have been slightly better but over all, on fairly good roads, it’s hard to tell a difference.
Perhaps I’ll see a difference in the ride when I get back down to Mexico.
I probably saved $1200 by doing it myself. Easy job that would have been even easier if the rig had been on a flat spot. Could have used my creeper.
I’ve been here at Dan’s house for around three weeks now and this trip there isn’t much to fix. Last year I fixed 28 or so items that weren’t working or were broken or miss applied that my brother hadn’t had time or skill to do much about.
This time there really isn’t anything new. Everything I fixed last time is still fixed. Not much to do. And since he flipped the little Ford Escort I put the engine in last time I was here, there’s no wheels for me to use so I’m kind of stuck in the house all day. I could walk down to the strip mall but couldn’t carry much back.
In other words, I’m getting bored. I might head up to Death Valley and hang out there for a couple weeks. Don’t know yet. The fuel price is soooo bad, over $3 per gallon of diesel, that I have to really think about my next destination and plan so I save as much fuel as I can. ‘Course to offset the cost, I could hang in one place longer, and it helps if it’s free. Like at Dan’s place it doesn’t cost me anything. And where I’m going next month, Lake Tahoe, I’ll get free parking for the rig for 6 weeks. It’s volunteer work for the forest service so I get a free site. I could extend my stay too.
I don’t have any plans after that except maybe head up to Portland, Oregon and visit friends for a couple weeks. Then maybe over to northern Idaho to try and find a piece of land to park on during the summer. I don’t know. I do know that the fuel prices won’t stop my travels, just put a crimp in them.
Let me know where you think I should go…comments are “ON”.
Jim
If you recall, I was forced by my satellite internet provider (Direcway) to return to the states in order to receive a refund of a wrongly charged ‘termination’ fee. The management of Direcway have their collective heads so far up their collective tushes that they will never figure out why they get flamed all over the web at hundreds of sites.
Anyway, I left the RV park in Amado and headed north to Tempe, then on to my brothers house in Rosamond, CA.
As you can see the weather was kinda gloomy. Matched my mood. I wanted to stay another month in Mexico. Sigh. I’ll be back there in November or December:
I stopped just for this picture since the topography was so typical of the area:
When I got to Quartzsite, I first stopped at the Love’s Fuel station there in town. I’d been paying $1.86 or so per gallon of diesel in Mexico, and here it’s $2.59. I’m lucky to have found that price. Most of the places I’d passed in Arizona were in the $2.75 per gallon range.
As I drove through town, I found that all the RV business that are here from around late November through early February are now closed so I won’t be able to do any shopping for RV parts.
I spent the night at the free BLM camping area savoring the cool breeze that whipped through the area. I’d parked a 100 yards away from my nearest neighbor so I got some alone time. While waiting for nightfall, I did some fluid checks on the rig and checked the air pressure in the tires. With everything OK, I had dinner and watched some TV, then went to bed early.
The next morning, around 6am, I woke up refreshed and ready for another day of driving.
I headed north towards Parker, Arizona because I wanted to avoid having to drive through all the traffic around LA. My brothers place is 90 miles north of LA so I took the roads that take me north of Edwards AFB.
This is the highway to Parker:
A few hours later and I’m heading due west. The weather cleared up a little and I took this shot because I was near what is really a spectacular desert valley. It doesn’t really come through that way in the picture. Guess you need to go there yourself:
Later on, I passed this volcanic rock field. Kind of interesting but no cinder cone or caldera, notice how the day has brightened up:
After this, I passed through Barstow and onto Highway 58. The 4 lane section. Around the middle of that section, I hit a pothole that rattled my teeth. Right after that, I’m hearing a loud thumpa, thumpa, thumpa. Sounds like a flat so I start to pull over. I stop at a pull out and check all the tires. No flat and no tread separation that I could find. And no dead animals stuck between my duals. But whenever I move, a loud noise from the front end. I think I’ve got it localized to the left front, I call service and they dispatch a truck to tow me back to Barstow for service. While I’m waiting, I lift the rig on the front leveler and discover that the noise is coming from the right front wheel. And it’s loud too. While messing around with the tire, I find that 4 of the six lug nuts are loose! So I call and cancel the tow but ask for a tire truck (big rigs use them when they have a flat on the freeway-they have the tools and a compressor and can fix any tire problem without towing). The same outfit says they’re still coming out and can do the work. Meanwhile, I’ve tried to tighten the nuts with the tools I have but this is a 19.5″ tire so you need to apply around 200 Ft/Lbs to these nuts. I don’t have the strength. The tow truck gets there and I find that the guy has no idea about this big of a tire. Doesn’t even have a torque wrench with him. Not even aware of the tire pressures needed. Anyway, working together we get the nuts wrenched down tight and I head out. No more noise. Whee, another potential problem solved with a simple fix. I gotta tell you, the noise was so loud and so persistent that I thought that there was major front end damage to deal with. Here’s a shot of the wheel:
You can see by this shot that I was able to find a nice pull off of the freeway in order to work on the wheel. And there is a handy turn around for the tow guy to head back to town right here too:
Note: Found out from the manufacturer and other sources that the torque needed for the big nuts holding the wheel on is 450-500 ft-lbs. I don’t have the tool for that much torque but I’m looking for one.
A few miles down the road, this is the Mojave Desert:
A few hours later and I get to my brothers house in Rosamond, CA. He’s in Las Vegas but I’m just happy to be here. Note the steep driveway and street, I keep telling him that he needs to buy a new house on flat land with RV parking but he’s not hearing me:
Here’s the little patio he’s built to give himself a nice area to look out over the valley in the evening, has a little pond too:
